This weekend, I've been reading Chris Boese over at Serendipit-e. He's a journalism professor with a long list of blogged works. It's always nice to see a j-school teacher flourishing on the Internet, you know that a new generation of web writers will hit the web with a whole new toolbox.
I don't like to waste time arguing about the competition between the "Mainstream Media" and blogs, it just isn't helpful. I think this quote from Boese's website just goes to show how a lifetime commitment to journalism can easily adapt to this new webby medium--there's no need for journalists to fight with bloggers...
Check it out:
"I remember feeling EXACTLY this when forced to crank crap forgettable articles for newspapers, either the stress from constantly meeting new people and feeling shy while at the same time having to commodify them, or the personal humiliation at knowing I was just dumping my interview stories into a rote formula. That was in the 1980s, though, so I went into an MFA program in creative writing instead, to learn to write for myself and my own standards again.
"And now, many many years later, blogs have taken me past the creativity-cramping I used to feel after some of my poems got published in good literary magazines, the fear of writing a poem that was pure crap. Blogs are works in progress, and publications. They're a dessert topping AND a floor wax. Can't beat that."
What do you think? Can journalists and bloggers ever get along? Why do we even have to worry about this?
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