Posted by Matt Purdue
Just the other day, I heard that Kerry Peckner, formerly of Retirement Income Reporter, has begun blogging professionally. He’s the third print journo I’ve noticed in the past two month who has gone out into the digital world on his/her own. As a former ink-stained wretch from the land of print newspapers, I have to give these folks a tremendous amount of credit. They’re a little late, but they’ve finally realized that print media is going the way of the dodo bird. (Of course, as I write this, Kerry’s site won’t load. The digital realm is not without its set of challenges.)
God knows we need more “professional” bloggers. With apologies to all the legit bloggers out there, the blogosphere remains more like a flea market of information than a healthy exchange of real ideas. In fact, we may be about to reach the absolute bottom of the blog bargain bin with the release of the new film, Julie & Julia. From the syrup-addled mind of Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle, Bewitched), this bit of treacle tells the true story of a “lowly cubicle worker,” Julie Powell, who spent a year making all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook and blogging about it. It “changed her life,” the trailer intones. Holy crossover, Batman: an excruciating blog has been turned into a saccharine Hollywood onslaught.
Spare us, please. The only good news is that we can rest assured that by the time Nora Ephron gets hold of a societal trend, it’s already jumped the shark (see You’ve Got Mail, her paean to America Online). Maybe this will signal the beginning of the end of hackneyed, contrived blogs. But I doubt it. I can’t wait for the reaction to this film by bloggers with dollar signs in their eyes: blogger tries a new toothpaste every day; blogger visits a different Burger King every day; blogger sings a different song to her cat and houseplants every day. Where does it end?
As middlemen in the communications marketplace, we need more journalist bloggers. Here’s a personal example of the trouble with citizen journalists who are equipped with more ambition than good sense. A friend of mine, a very smart individual, recently wrote a post for a well-known digital community focused on bicycle racing. His post explained how he encountered various fans at a bicycle race, including one “black man” dressed at Caesar. My clueless friend didn’t bother to mention the skin color of any of the other people he met that day, except for this one “black man.”
Naturally, readers of the site lambasted my friend as insensitive, ignorant and worse. I know he’s no racist, so I gave him a shoulder to cry on. But, I pointed out, a freshman journalism major at a junior college knows not to report racial or ethnic identifiers unless they are absolutely vital to the story. He, obviously, never took freshman journalism. So he, and the site that posted his musings, appear asinine.
He’ll learn. But while he’s learning, would you, as a PR professional, count on him? Would you put your company’s CEO in front of him?
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