The Blog Mob: written by fools, read by imbeciles?

Eric Salas emailed me a link about this article from the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page written by Joseph Rago:

The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.

Of course, once a technosocial force like the blog is loosed on the world, it does not go away because some find it undesirable. So grieving over the lost establishment is pointless, and kind of sad. But democracy does not work well, so to speak, without checks and balances. And in acceding so easily to the imperatives of the Internet, we’ve allowed decay to pass for progress.

Read the complete article here.

If this guy didn’t have a spot on the WSJ (or any MSM page for that matter), he would be blogging and on our side by now. Merry Christmas to you too, Mr. Rago.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

7 Comments

markku says:

18 years ago

Maybe he’s just sad because no one reads his blog. So he writes for MSM. Hehehe.
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Dave Starr says:

18 years ago

Kind of an interesting viewpoint from a paid employee of one of the last bastions of the business model consisting of gather information and lock it away from potential readers until they pay a fee. No wonder he perceives blogs as a negative force in his nicely shaped little world. He might not get as big a bonus next year if WSJ profits are down.

Is it true that there are a lot of useless blogs out there? of course it is, but that no more proves that blogs are worthless than the logic that since some drivers are road idiots therefore so are all drivers. It’s a bit of failure to pay attention during first year logic classes.

Amongst the ‘chaff’ of not good blogs are the ‘wheat’ of actual journalistic freedom. More appropriately digital democracy. Given the choice between the former model of information being controlled by media moguls and governments to today’s model of publish at will I certainly know that I’m in favor of freedom.

One of the great opportunities being realized today and bound to be better realized in the future are services that democratically separate the wheat from the chaff … I think we sometimes call it Social Networking and other similar names. However, none of this pays Mr. Rago’s Starbucks bills so of course he doesn’t like it. Sorry ’bout that.
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Jim says:

18 years ago

…which is way below the belt
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Jim says:

18 years ago

Now look who’s reading the blog??? (RAGO!!) well, he obviously is reading the wrong stuff, and is obviously pointing to himself.

He might have some point but he argued that most blogs produced “by and large” crap materials.
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Andrew says:

18 years ago

Another journalist vs. blogger article. Heh. Proves my point.
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Sasha Manuel says:

18 years ago

You have got to be kidding me. Is he serious? /note the sarcasm

Let me at him. Let me AT him!! ;)
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Mike Abundo says:

18 years ago

Wow. He’s descending to the same level as this bloghating idiot.
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