New York Times pt.2

So, since we’re talking about how great they are, lets look at 2 stories, one by the venerable New York Times, and one by the much despised fluff paper USA Today.

NYTimes article, pimply faced kid, calling bloggers “diarists”, and a general find-some-quotes article is slightly offensive and certainly not interesting. The implication that webloggers going to the convention are all hacks and kids.

Jeralyn Merritt had expected the news to come by e-mail rather than by snail mail, otherwise known as the United States Postal Service.

But she had to rip, rather than click, to open the message informing her that she had received press credentials to cover the Democratic National Convention in Boston for her Internet Web log, or blog, at TalkLeft.com, where she offers a running commentary on political and criminal justice issues.

Oh, I get it, she uses this newfangled INTARWEB and thought the invitations would come there, silly Jeralyn!

Meanwhile at USA Today they have Dave Weinberger, (co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and the author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined. He writes primarily about the Web’s effect on ideas and has written for Wired, Salon and a wide variety of journals. He is currently Senior Internet Advisor to the Howard Dean campaign.) talking about the concepts of objectivity in weblogging versus traditional journalism with Walter Mears, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who has covered 11 presidential campaigns.

“How can we trust you to blog if we don’t know who you support” in the presidential election, David Weinberger asked

“Because I’m objective,” replied Mears, 69, who has come out of retirement to team with two colleagues on AP’s first attempt at a political blog, an online diary of news and commentary, from the Democratic National Convention.

“That’s the way you make your living” in journalism, he said. “The good ones learn to be dispassionate and straight.”

“Objectivity is a worthwhile objective, but it needs to be recognized that it can’t be reached,” Weinberger said.

Wow, interesting discussion among people who know what they’re talking about and are experts in their field, and hey no patronizing garbage or lazy reporting.