Read it and weep...
"Nobody reads any longer. Most Americans are literate, but they prefer to confine their reading to bits and scraps of trivia and current chitchat, increasingly on the Web rather than on the page. I know for a fact—they keep me informed of my Web hits—that virtually no one will read this review. I could make any absurd assertion I please, such as "New Orleans residents are eating locusts to survive" or "Angry feminists are smuggling vast supplies of wire hangers into South Dakota," without anyone noticing, let alone challenging me. (If you see either of these wholly imaginary claims cropping up as a "fact" on some blog, feel free to let me know: mfeingold@villagevoice.com.) The Web's jangle of contradictory statements, arriving when our attention spans had already been shortened by television, at least partially explains the public apathy that keeps the most incompetent administration, and the most corrupt congressional majority, in American history comfortably in office."
If you made it this far while reading an evil blog post, you probably disagree with Feingold. But you know what, I agree that damaged attention spans and the blogger opinion-avalanche are reducing the outlets available great writers.
The question is, what do you do if you are a fledgling writer without a job at Village Voice? Do you quit and go to law school? Or do you scrutinize web writing for clues about how to survive in this new world, like us?
» The Great Brooklyn Small Publisher Test from ThePublishingSpot
Last night I spoke with a couple people from Soft Skull Press, the company that publishes our buddies Nick Mamatas and Michael McColly. I devoted ten days on this site to Soft Skull writers, but they hadn't read my... [Read More]
Tracked on: June 2, 2006 11:45 AM | Permalink to Trackback