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Newspapers vs. weblogs: Some discussions are not as useful as others
March 26, 2007 |
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Writing at my own weblog a few days ago, I was struck by a decidedly reactionary guest commentary on blogs published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
I don't understand why we celebrate the growth of blogs. It seems to me that they are just another expression of our fascination with our own opinions. We are fast becoming a nation of Sayers, rather than Doers.
For all the hype about interactivity, blogs are first and foremost the epitome of one-way chatter. You can sit at your computer and spew a stream of consciousness. You can chuckle at your own funny lines, pat yourself on the back for a pithy comment, stand up and shake your fist while driving your point home.
I have what I hope is a helpful suggestion for bloggers: Instead of just sitting inside your house and commenting on the world around you, why don't you, um, get up and leave? There is a whole non-cyber, non-virtual place waiting for you and your opinions. It's called the world.I snarked at the time that a pro-blogging piece in that paper would be an unlikely occurence, but mirabile dictu, the P-D offered one up, courtesy of another guest:
Philip Barron is a St. Louis writer and author of the blog Waveflux.
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