July 22, 2002

12:50 PM

Today we'll be discussingJason, Slashdot's Commander, and Ernie. Apparently there's going to be a class in blogging taught to journalism grad students. Do you rail against this at all? Is it because most students won't get it and eff up blogging as a whole, or is it because this means that the blog has Sold Out To The Man? usual "I searched and couldn't find this" disclaimers apply.
posted by verso (25 comments total)

Blogging was no longer cool the moment I started doing it. Because I am the Man.
posted by srboisvert at 1:15 PM on July 22, 2002

I don't really see the point much of teaching Journalism students about blogging. I can't even see the point of teaching it as a comp. science class. If a journalist is good, or is going to be good, then blogging should come fairly naturally to them. It's like trying to teach an english major how to keep a diary. Don't really get it.
posted by Ufez Jones at 1:22 PM on July 22, 2002

Wow, what's up with this incredible elitism about blogging? Blogging is a pretty simple idea, you post whatever you think is cool on the net to your site, and if other people also think it's cool, they'll read your site. There really isn't that much more to it than that. Now what's there not to get, and what is there to mess up? If they happen to make a crappy or uninteresting blog (which, IMHO, sums up the great majority of blogs) then noone will read it and it will reside in its little corner of the net forever. What's so bad about that?
posted by statusquo at 1:45 PM on July 22, 2002

I can point out one reason, as someone who graduated from a master in journalism program: most journalists aren't tech-saavy, and aren't early adopters (I'm excluding technology journalists, who are a tiny subset and generally don't show up in academic journalism programs much anyway.)

Journalists, on the whole, are fairly extroverted, social-oriented people who are not the type spending a lot of time learning computer technology. Also, their personalities and jobs don't really lend to them learning a lot of new technologies.

I think it's a really POSITIVE thing that someone is out there teaching journalists to weblog. Contrary to the cliche, "the media" is not some huge, singular entity (see: "The Man".) Most journalists are great, but their personal agendas and interests are often subverted by the huge media organizations they have to work for in order to get published.

These are folks who work for very little money, in tough jobs, often because they view it as a high form of public service. They are a very likely group to increase the power of weblogging and move it further from its "hey, look what I found in my nose this morning / navel-gazing introspection roots." Certainly, the field has come a long way, and I think a lot of bloggers would really be journalists if they didn't have the outlet of the web. But it's hard to criticize an effort to take this expanding technology and move it out towards the community of professional news gatherers and opinion writers. I can't see how that would be a "bad thing" and it's fairly similar to how most technologies for publishing and information dissemination have spread in terms of adoption.

It's tools like MoveableType that made weblogging appealing to a wider reach of tech-saavy people. But it's classes that will expand the practice beyond those communities.
posted by tomkarlo at 1:49 PM on July 22, 2002

if someone has to teach you how to blog, you're doomed from the start! it's not like it's fine art.

hey that rhymed!
posted by mcsweetie at 2:04 PM on July 22, 2002

yeah, i'll have to agree somewhat with srboisvert.. except i'm under the opinion that blogging stopped becoming cool when i started doing it.
posted by lotsofno at 2:33 PM on July 22, 2002

Wow, what's up with this incredible elitism about blogging?

I dunno if it's elitism, per se. It's more, like, More people blogging = more blogs = more dilution of the blogosphere = less chance anyone will read mine. I suspect that's at the heart of many complaints about the blogging explosion.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 2:37 PM on July 22, 2002

Wow, what's up with this incredible elitism about blogging?

Jorn Barger is spinning in his grave.
posted by crunchland at 2:53 PM on July 22, 2002

If we can have books on blogging, why not a class?
posted by turaho at 2:55 PM on July 22, 2002

i blog, therefore i am...
posted by quonsar at 2:58 PM on July 22, 2002

It's more, like, More people blogging = more blogs = more dilution of the blogosphere = less chance anyone will read mine.

Dilution? Richer, lusher, complexified. Greater interconnectedness. More Readers.
posted by mattw at 3:23 PM on July 22, 2002

Is it because most students won't get it and eff up blogging as a whole...

It would be very difficult to do that. If those students start writing crap on their blogs, no one will link to them. If you don't believe me, write crap on a blog and I won't link to it, which will then prove my airtight theory. In other words, the inertia of hundreds of bloggers would be very hard to screw up.
posted by jaden at 3:24 PM on July 22, 2002

if someone has to teach you how to blog, you're doomed from the start! it's not like it's fine art.

They used to say that about jazz / film / books / insert whatever you like. There's no reason why a weblog, or a specific blog post, can't be a work of art. Just give it a few decades and weblogging will be the uppercrust refuge of bourgeois silverhairs, and all the cool kids will have moved on to ... uh, let's say injecting sushi. Yeah, that'll be the hot new trend.

Courses on blogging will mean an increase in credibility for weblogs, and that can't be a bad thing, right?

BTW this was previously discussed here.
posted by D at 4:56 PM on July 22, 2002

suddenly i feel like playing trivial pursuit.
posted by t r a c y at 5:12 PM on July 22, 2002

Is it because most students won't get it and eff up blogging as a whole

blogging has always been effed up.

blogging has always been lame.

mefi is more a fancy bbs than a blog.
posted by Satapher at 5:14 PM on July 22, 2002

you heard D.

Better stock up while ya still can.
posted by jonmc at 6:02 PM on July 22, 2002

I'd rather journalism schools didn't teach blogging so I will have less competition from other journalists.

Journalists, on the whole, are fairly extroverted, social-oriented people who are not the type spending a lot of time learning computer technology. Also, their personalities and jobs don't really lend to them learning a lot of new technologies.

As a journalist I'm neither extroverted nor social, and spend a lot of my time learning computer technology and electronics... But then again I have an entirely different outlook on journalism than most of the ones I know, most of them would fit into your description of journos.

A year ago, I did a presentation in a journalism class on weblogs, and no one in the class had ever heard of them.

Personally though, teaching weblogging seems too focused. A better, and broader class concept would be to teach advanced media literacy focused on learning how to filter information (like most weblogs tend to do) learning the best tricks for learning how to choose stories people will find interesting- which could include a weblog component...
posted by drezdn at 6:12 PM on July 22, 2002

Wouldn't journalists do better to study Glenn, Eugene and their ilk?
posted by swerdloff at 6:20 PM on July 22, 2002

Crap. I'm going to keep having to add chapters to my blog book. I hope to have it ready by Christmas. Now I'm going to have to read all the other blog books first so I can rebut all the stuff I don't agree with. Argh. (I'm already reading We've Got Blog and taking tons of notes on what I'll be addressing in my own book).

Anyway, the point is that I think y'all are using a far too narrow view of weblogs. They both are (in some ways) and aren't (in other ways) something new, and will evolve along with the internet into all sorts of niches.

There's a lot of rich material to be explored with regard to blogs, and I for one think it's interesting and perhaps even cool that someone's already teaching a class about them.
posted by beth at 8:44 PM on July 22, 2002

Odd, seems like yesterday you couldn't slog through a mainstream press article about blogging without running into quotes from Meg, Ev, and Kottke ... now it's always Layne, Welch, and InstaPundit. Have the warbloggers staged a coup at A-List HQ?
posted by swell at 9:36 PM on July 22, 2002

Psst. There's a better place for a post like this.

swerdloff: you may wish to read the linked article; the FPP's choices were not representative of the material. Sorry, verso.

swell, in this case, it's that Laynce, Welch, and Reynolds have journalism cred and overlap in their approach, as opposed to other types of bloggers. Clearly, it's becoming a new outlet for certain journalists, and teaching it is really no different than teaching magazine vs. newspaper vs. television or investigative vs. feature writing. It is qualitatively different, and to twist a statement above, it's very social: the blogger seeking cred has to keep his audience in mind, like an editor, and has to both accept criticism and graciously permit his audience to add to his research. That's a little different from the way most journalists work. You become more of a story 'manager' than a reporter. It's probably also not for everyone.
posted by dhartung at 10:20 PM on July 22, 2002

Newspaper news columnist Steve Outing recently suggested that blogs should be introduced to the newsroom.
posted by owillis at 10:49 PM on July 22, 2002

well, why not?what on earth is the problem with journalism students learning blogging? what's so special about blogging anyway? i've got one and it's rubbish. who cares? i link, therefore i am
posted by quarsan at 11:28 PM on July 22, 2002

I'm glad I started a discussion. I know I didn't pick the exact right people (looks over at dhartung), but I don't "make the blog scene", as it were, so I didn't know really who would make good subjects. Ernie is a fine blog, IMO, and Instapundit etc were linked in the article. I'll try harder next time. I got people talking which was my intent. (:

My opinion is that bloggers are sort of like "geeks", some of them get so caught up in the meta of things that they think it's the end of the world that x runs on y now, or that it's the world's biggest tragedy that nobody ported a so it would run on b. Bloggers strike me as very similar creatures.

I have to go read more Porn Clerk Confessions now. See ya!
posted by verso at 1:01 AM on July 23, 2002

mcsweetie:

if someone has to teach you how to blog, you're doomed from the start! it's not like it's fine art

Well said!

The best thing about weblogging is that any moron can do it.

The worst thing about weblogging is that any moron can do it.

What really annoys me is that the current weblogging "community" is so overrun with fame seeking wannabe blowjob artists (Andrew Sullivan, his assorted warblogger suck ups and Dave Winer come to mind) and those who are totally desperate to get linked by them.

If you think you're gonna get respect from all of the people who didn't like you in high school or make money by weblogging, do the rest of us a favor and forget about it!
posted by mark13 at 4:13 PM on July 23, 2002