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Nov

14

Open Wide for Wide Open; National Union of J’lists admits first full-time blogger; Feagler feedback


I wanted to use a palindrome. At the end of this day, not the best, but kind of works. I’m not the best at headlines.

Jan and Lew Katz, fellow Pepper Pike Democratic Club members and Lew, the beneficiary of that gargantuan donation from Jeff Coryell, wrote this letter to the PD.

John Kelly, the WaPo reporter at Oxford studying cit j’lism left this comment on the “Are Reporters Doomed? cont’d” post.

Null Space has two posts from last week about Wide Open – not sure how I missed them. The first one is Blog-freedom in Cleveland and the second is Follow that story: Cleveland Blog Freedom.

How Much Do Journalists Rely on Blogs isn’t exactly about Wide Open, but the issue arises frequently in the Ohio sphere and it did arise during Wide Open’s run. The post is worth a few minutes – even if just to confirm what many of us could have guessed.

The National Union of Journalists (in England) “…has admitted its first full-time freelance professional blogger as a member” according to Journalism.co.uk. The blogger is a regular contributor to the well-trafficked technology blog, Endgadget. How’d it happen?

“I may be the first person to apply as a new member with the vast majority of my experience being at a blog — that has always been a blog, and will always be a blog – but that doesn’t mean I’m the first blogger member of the NUJ,” wrote [Conrad] Quilty-Harper.

He added that his blog’s affiliation with a mainstream media company – Engadget is a member of the AOL-owned Weblogs, Inc. network – could have been a contributing factor to the NUJ approving his application.

I see.

Last but not least, Dick Feagler on bloggers and journalists.

Feedback:

Kellie Patterson Cuyahoga Falls School Board Member

Keith on Bad American

Tim Russo on Buckeye State Blog

Eric Vessels on Plunderbund

Now, what did I think of Feagler’s column? Well, I really can’t write anything without disclosing that I’ve been on his show twice now, both times with at least one reporter or editor from the PD (Elizabeth Sullivan and Mark Naymik). He was very kind to me, very inclusive and frankly, not the least bit derisive of the fact that I probably came to his attention primarily because of my blogging, even though the producer of his show, Paul Cox, knew me from the WCPN regional roundtable. But even there, Dan Moulthrop I’m pretty sure only really had me on the radar because of my blogging. That, or someone else suggested my name to them. And all that, about a year ago now, and more than four years after I’d started freelance writing.

So – what do I think?

All the feedback has legitimate complaints (and kudos in the case of Bad American).

Feagler may really believe that he really feels that way. But based on my experience, I am convinced that he really wants us to give him a reason to take us “off the hook” as he calls it. The hook being that we didn’t pay dues, or something along those lines.

I say, “something along those lines” because nearly all the bloggers with whom I associate do an enormous amount of primary source work – riding in cars with candidates and so on. Blogs make people who weren’t active, active. I’m a prime example.

I do not believe Feagler is against that – but he isn’t recognizing that either, and he should. He should work to devote one column to the positives of blogs – so many others do that on a daily basis: Jay Rosen for one but there are many, many others – many of whom are exactly the educated, experienced journalists Feagler praises.

Life is not fair. It just isn’t.

And so I would say, write to Dick Feagler: Please realize that many of us know your sentiments have validity – real validity, not just lip service validity. But what you say about all bloggers, because of all the negativity many blogs perpetuate, doesn’t represent the reality – the real reality.

And moreover, Ohio possesses an inordinate number of exceptional blogs that are the exception.

Dick, if Joe Hallett could say that he’s a convert – or at least more than accepting of the good work several Ohio political blogs do – whatever it is we want to call what it is that blogs do (journalism or not), I know you can too.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:29 pm November 14th, 2007 in Blogging, Media, Ohio, Politics, Wide Open 

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