Oh My Blog: What’s the big deal about “new media” influence?

By Richard Laermer, Guest Author

Buzz Bissinger is an investigative journalist and well-regarded sportswriter and author of the acclaimed football story, “Friday Night Lights.” Will Leitch was until this week editor of Deadspin, typically considered the country’s most influential and widely read sports blog. Several weeks ago Bob Costas invited them to appear on his show to debate merits of a so-called new medium. Bissinger totally imploded. His tirade dripped with obscenity and paranoia — great TV! Blogs, railed the old print journo, were dangerous and poorly written, the worst of amateurism. They had no business doing what they did and no place in “respectable” (his word) coverage. He screamed. He insulted whoever was in front of him. He sounded, rather clearly, like a man threatened.

Leitch meanwhile sat in bafflement. Bob C. dithered. Next morning the sports blogosphere lit up with a fury. It was a moment when-in the ESPN-addicted corner — the simmering MSM vs. Interwebs feud came to a boil. Snobs against slobs, curmudgeons versus whippersnappers. It was hysterical.

That, friends, is the fundamental problem both with Bissinger’s attack and with those who see his victims as purest purveyors of perfectly-put-out placements. Namely that the blog itself is not “the thing.” Blogs do not live; they have not minds, nor special powers. They cannot possible posit the end of journalism, nor its rebirth. They are none of the thousands of things ascribed by some blogger every day. At least not completely. This is because to blog is not a philosophy but a methodology. This is forgotten all the time by — you.

The nature of the blog itself — sports, political, commercial, confessional, name it — is that there is no nature. It’s like the Bush Administration’s risible War on Terrorism: terrorism is not warring with us. See, class, there was terrorism thousands of years ago and terrorism will be with us in a thousand years. It is the METHOD that our actual enemies use against us. It is NOT the enemy.

Lesson two. “Blogging,” aside from its basic description — er, short posts you or I can write in our PJs — adheres to no single definition or facile characterization. Blogs are merely extensions of writers. There is, G-d damn it, no bloggy DNA.

Some blogs are poorly written, as “Friday”s Bissinger claims with fervor and some spittle. The blogs read more poorly than 99% of newspaper and magazine columns. That’s what happens with no editorial oversight, a laptop and lots of laptime.

Some blogs are exquisitely written and like poetry. Written with more clarity and insight than 99% of newspaper and magazine columns. That, too, is what happens with no editorial oversight, a laptop, and some freshly-pressed undies.

Sometimes blogs elevate a current dialogue, sometimes they’re basic clutter. But if anything conventional wisdom holds, it’s the more voices the better for all of us. And what can be said about blogging is that for better or for worse it’s the most naturalistic thing out there.

Face it, I beseech you: Nothing so quickly and brazenly demonstrates who we are and what we think at any moment than the blog itself. It taps into our exhibitionist instincts and our laziness and our narcissism; it feeds honesty and empathy. It mirrors our interests and/or attitudes a heck of a lot more comprehensively than print journalism or smoke signals or face-to-face will or can! Sure, many find the whole blogging circus bad. But to my blogger friends it’s all good. The motivations the blogger are no different from the motivations of any human interaction. These dudes debate and advertise and mimic and kill time and hurt and heal. And they communicate. Reason why several years into this revolution no Grand Label has been stiffly attached to blogging fits is because all of them do.

Some say the blog is the Great Democratizer; others dub the community Big Time Satan. It’s all pretty petty. We are focused and we are heard. Our better angels are silenced. It weakens our discourse. It focuses it. It shortens attention spans. Gosh, it promotes reading. It drains our intelligence. It means we can absorb more information quicker and with surreal agility. It renders information just useless. It’s the voice of the disenfranchised. It’s futile. It’s powerful. It’s eternal. It’s passing. It’s definitely about to be corporatized. It’ll eat the dust of the corporation. It serves as a social record. It debases our society. It is the guy with a bullhorn/megaphone. It’s an echo chamber.

Now I’m exhausted. I’ve got three paragraphs left.

So what is blogging and where, readers, is it headed?

…It depends on where we are headed.

The blog is the vehicle, not the highway.

– 30 –

RIP Tim Russert. You will be missed.

See Yeahwhatever.com and a blog — right, wrong, indifferent — found on Laermer.com. Read 2011: Trendspotting, the book that’s not a blog.