By following links on Dion Nissenbaum’s blog yesterday, I came across this 20 June post on blogging, from Adam Reilly’s blog for the Boston Phoenix,
DontQuoteMe
” :
“…there’s a lot of disagreement out there about what, exactly, ‘blogs’ and ‘bloggers’ are. Who decided, for example, that writing like a grown-up means you’re not blogging? Or that writing pieces that stand on their own means the same thing? To my mind, something’s a blog if it’s A) published online and B) subjected to less editorial oversight than an article that runs in print (though not necessarily no editorial oversight at all). It’s hard to come up with a narrower definition. Most blogs allow comments; some don’t. The author’s point of view is usually dominant, but not always. Some are self-published by amateurs; some are written by professional journalists for their employer. Some are obscene and juvenile; some are high-minded and esoteric. That’s precisely why anyone who makes blanket statements about what blogs are and aren’t risks looking like a jackass. You wouldn’t condemn ‘newspapers’ after reading Page Six, or ‘radio” after listening to Michael Savage. Same deal here”.