Ringolsby on Blogging
King Kaufman interviews Tracy Ringolsby — late of the Rocky Mountain News — about the death of his paper and the notion that he’s turning into a blogger of some kind with his new Rockies web site:
Kaufman: You say you don’t know that much about the Internet and I wonder how you feel about being a blogger now. There’s this trumped-up difference between we trained journalists — professionals — and bloggers. I wonder if you buy into any of that or care about it or how you feel about it now that you’re writing for a blog.
Ringolsby: I’m not real sure what all the technical terms are. In my mind it’s a Web site. We’re providing news and coverage of what goes on. I’m not going to say what’s a blog or what’s not a blog because I don’t even understand where the terminology “blog” comes from.
There’s some interaction with readers who want to ask questions and stuff. But I’ve seen some Web sites where they just get into being a bunch of guys sitting around screaming and yelling at each other and stuff. We don’t have that kind of setup. We don’t have that type of interaction created. I don’t feel that much different except it’s hard to take a computer screen into the bathroom in the morning.
Kaufman: You gotta get a laptop.
And with that, King Kaufman has authored the line of the year so far.
(thanks to reader Chris S. for the heads up)
And a Glad Plug-in.
My brother and I have long referred to any electronic medium used to read while, ahem, “in the library” as a T.U.R.D, aka a Toilet Utility Reading Device.
Not saying it’s right, just saying it’s funny.
“In my mind it’s a Web site. We’re providing news and coverage of what goes on. I’m not going to say what’s a blog or what’s not a blog because I don’t even understand where the terminology “blog” comes from.”
AND HE WONDERS WHY TRADITIONAL MEDIA FAILS….
Does he? Or are you one of the .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of bloggers actually making enough money to do it fulltime?
You always here the redundant “a bunch of guys sitting around yelling at each other”. He says hes been to a bunch of these sites. Where? Most sites that are worth a darn usually have a fairly mature reader base. There are plenty of these sites/blogs and they are not hard to find. I think hes either lieing or diggin a little to hard if he keeps running into these “loud mouth” sites. Maybe he really doesnt know how to use that innernat thingy.
Yes, a bunch of guys sitting around yelling at each other. That’s nothing at all like the mainstream sports media, right? PTI, Around the Horn, Rome, Mike and Mike, pretty much every sports radio show…. nah, those are nothing like blogs.
Mehmattski is right on the money. The media sports outlets have become more and more like the blogs. It’s the nature of the beast. It’s sports afterall, escapist entertainment. Hopefully there’s room for blogs as well as eloquent professional writing. Where is Roger Angell?
TC
H.L. Mencken is, was, and will probably always be right: Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public.