commbasics

There has been no small amount of debate regarding the journalistic legitimacy of bloggers. Considering the kind of crap that stands as print and broadcast content, it's kind of funny that "traditional" journalists feel affronted by bloggers lack of perspective. But this issue of perspective and journalism is something every communicator should consider. Blog content lines up very nicely with what passed for journalism throughout history, especially Revolutionary America. Even Ben Franklin got into pissing contests with political rivals and competing newspapers under his own name and under psuedonymns like "Silence Dogood" and "Poor Richard." But that was the infancy of a free press in the United States and, eventually, some civility prevailed. Some, I said, not a lot. The American press has always been something of a Wild West shootout and our most revered journalists were generally curmudgeons. Consider, for example, Mark Twain, Ring Lardner, ...