What's a blog?

[Nathan Newman]

It's all kind of odd-- zines and alternative vanity media has existed pretty
much forever.  The only think notable about blogs is the existence of the
Internet which makes distribution essentially infinite, depending on readers
interest.

I.F. Stone essentially wrote the equivalent of a blog back in the day-- in
fact, if I had to nominate anyone as the patron saint of the spirit of
blogging, it would be Izzy Stone, since he picked out obscure information to
highlight or added context to popular stories, essentialy the stock in trade
of today's bloggers.

I also love the comment in the original story of blogs being an "infinite
echo chamber" from a mass media of pack journalists pursuing O.J., Monica,
Chandra Levy, and repetitive uncritical "war on terrorism" stories.

In a sense blogging, is also just a web complement to the kinds of
discussions and mutual comment that we do on LBO all the time.  Each
approach has its advantages and disadvantages-- mailing lists are more
interactive among its core participants but is harder to wade through for
more casual readers.  The Web blogs, especially the more cross-linking ones,
are far easier for casual folks to read and actually plays more with the
hypertext jumping around the Web that is the joy of the Internet, but loses
some heft in the vibrancy of debate of email lists.

Nathan Newman
nathan at newman.org     http://www.nathannewman.org
http://www.nathannewman.org/log/  (News & Views WebLog)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeffrey Fisher" <jfisher at igc.org>
To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Sent: Friday, June 07, 2002 10:19 AM
Subject: Re: What's a blog?

why anyone needs john batelle to "learn about" blogging is entirely
beyond me. and what does "legit" mean with blogs, anyway?

On Friday, June 7, 2002, at 09:11 AM, Kevin Robert Dean wrote:


> <snip>


> Next fall, a handful of students at the University of
> California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism
> will convene weekly to learn about blogging from John
> Batelle, a co-founder of Wired magazine, and Paul
> Grabowicz, the school's new media program director.
>
> Students will create a weblog devoted to copyright
> issues, from "deep-linking" to online music trading.
> They'll also debate whether blogs are "a sensible
> medium for doing journalism, and what does that mean?"
> said Grabowicz, who contributes to the Poynter
> Institute's online media blog.
>

which, btw, is a pretty good blog. :-)

j