Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: frustrated

Blogging and Prejudice

Here's a post about bloggers as journalists, and the prejudice against same.  

Sometimes I just boggle at the idiocy of humans and their incredible fetish for lumping things into categories so they don't have to think.  Bloggers can apply journalistic standards and techniques to their work, or not.  So can people who write for newspapers or TV news programs. A sensible viewer will look at the content and gauge the quality and reliability thereof, rather than making purely categorical predictions.  There are trends, yes.  That's all they are.  There are also exceptions and eddies in other directions.  Some bloggers are brilliant journalists.  And then there is Fox "News."
Tags: blogging, networking, reading
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  • 3 comments
tuftears

tuftears

October 29 2012, 19:15:23 UTC 8 years ago

I had to snerk a bit about journalists looking down at bloggers... And bloggers then pointing out, "So what's Fox News?" >_>
technoshaman

technoshaman

October 29 2012, 21:33:54 UTC 8 years ago

Something I tried to do during the 2010 election and during Occupy was remind folks that - legally - we are *all* journalists, and to use that awesome responsibility well and frequently.

Sturgeon's law, of course, applies... and it seems that Mr. Gilligan would be in the "Fox 'News'" category of people who make their living making a keyboard clatter...

People *do* have a thing for labelling things, so they can sort them and make sense. Some people just don't know how to use their "other" bin.... some ignore it entirely, some abuse it badly...

Labels... hmmm.... I like tags better, because you can have as many of them as you need.

Hm! An interesting experiment... hypothesis: Assuming things are tagged reliably, things with more tags are more interesting. So one could conceivably have a use case for "sort by number of tags"...

You make me think. I like that...
ysabetwordsmith

Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

October 30 2012, 06:45:47 UTC 8 years ago

>> Something I tried to do during the 2010 election and during Occupy was remind folks that - legally - we are *all* journalists, and to use that awesome responsibility well and frequently. <<

This is, by the way, something that terrifies the government and corporations. When citizens can communicate quickly and easily, it is more likely they'll spot abuses and protest them effectively. Knowledge is power.

>> Sturgeon's law, of course, applies... and it seems that Mr. Gilligan would be in the "Fox 'News'" category of people who make their living making a keyboard clatter... <<

True. I believe there should be a firm line drawn, so that Official News Sources contain verified facts and within their purvue anything that's just an opinion should be clearly marked as such. It's vital to know what is solid information. But beyond that, there needs to be room for people to dig around and find stuff, comment on stuff -- that's how you figure out what might be an important enough story to call in the professional journalists and the industrial-strength muckrakes.

Fox "News" qualifies as blasphemy according to my religion: the deliberate distortion of facts to mislead people in a desired direction. I am reminded of the Láadan word rahéelhedan -- to deliberately mistranslate with evil intent [rahéedan=to mistranslate + lh=give negative connotation].

>> People *do* have a thing for labelling things, so they can sort them and make sense. Some people just don't know how to use their "other" bin.... some ignore it entirely, some abuse it badly... <<

True. I tend to use a fractal organization system myself, with a lot of cross-references.

>> Labels... hmmm.... I like tags better, because you can have as many of them as you need. <<

Agreed! I was recently discussion with someone how to organize an archive of resources for writing about characters with disabilities, and came to the conclusion that tags would be more useful than folders.

>> Hm! An interesting experiment... hypothesis: Assuming things are tagged reliably, things with more tags are more interesting. So one could conceivably have a use case for "sort by number of tags"... <<

Well, things with more tags will tend to be more complex, or farther from common ideas. Things with fewer tags will have ideas that are easily summarized in concise terms. If you like things that don't nutshell readily, you will probably find those fringes more interesting.

>> You make me think. I like that... <<

Yay! *hugs* I love that about you too, actually. It's wonderful having a thoughtful audience.