Dick Feagler: On the way to becoming a curiosity
As a blogger, today I?m writing defensively. Before anyone questions my fact-checking concerning the title of my post, please let me inform you that my definition of a curiosity comes from the Oxford English Dictionary, and I quote, it is something upon which there is ?care or attention carried to excess or unduly bestowed upon matters of inferior moment.? May I suggest that Mr. Feagler has become a victim of carrying his love affair with the past and his adherence to the mantra that ?The good old days hold nothing but fond memories of how much better things were then than now? to the point that he is making himself obsolete, as is the paper that pays for his opinions?
We are on the cusp of a new golden age of interactive journalism, one that is totally present and engaged, one that has no need to root around in feel-good fabrications of the way things used to be (but, truth be told, weren?t). The traditional journalism of our past allowed for Letters to the Editor. How many times have you written letters to the editor? How many times have your letters been published? Today, we are allowed access to traditional reporters by the email address listed at the bottom of articles, but this correspondence can be deleted read or unread, or read and responded to privately, but is rarely responded to in print. And now, we come to an evolving traditional journalism, which adds blogs to certain in-depth series in the newspapers (i.e., the one on the Ratners & FCE) in an attempt to add a more in-depth approach to a story already in print by allowing the reader to go to links that may give a different, more balanced view of the article?s subject. Oh yes, and these blogs also allow restricted, edited comments from chosen readers. All I have described so far is how MSM (mainstream media) in our town has decided to try to continue to control dialogue.
Well, Mr. Feagler, let me introduce you to the dawn of the new age of journalism here in Cleveland?the blogosphere where readers can correct faulty fact-checking immediately or flesh out a fact that the reader feels deserves more attention through a comment or by adding a post to their own blog. Readers can comment immediately or, after some thought, reply to a post, knowing that if their comment falls within comment policy guidelines, they will have a place in the dialogue concerning this subject. It allows for both sides of an issue to be discussed. In your case, Mr. Feagler, many people have said that they have enjoyed your jogs down memory lane but are rather shocked at the nastiness you showed towards the bloggers. My response to the nastiness issue is that people who are under siege often react with hostility to what they do not know or understand. Apparently, the bloggers have touched a raw nerve.
Before I comment further about the Feagler blogger opinion-piece, let me just say that I did not read it until after I visited Brewed Fresh Daily. The Feagler column has become too predictable and mundane for me to spend my time reading it on any regular basis. So let me just say this, he had one more reader than he usually does, and all because bloggers commented on him and made me go to the source material, out of curiosity and fairness. I think that being called a ?liar? was probably what made me write this post. I know many of the bloggers in our Northeast Ohio community personally, and we are not liars. We are trying the best way we know how to give Northeast Ohioans other viewpoints, more facts, and a voice in the dialogue that will be the future of our region.
Blogs are interactive organisms that grow and multiply, network and combine, and in so doing, become more open, more responsive to suggestion and fact enhancement. They become larger and more important, more significant, more trenchant, more true, with each interaction. They balance themselves and are self-correcting and self-healing; they find their own way. They connect, disband, and reconnect. If you don?t believe me about the greatness of what?s happening here, look at how much time ?static? journalism spends trying to discount blogging, to take it over, and, when that fails, to ?spin? it. It?s a threat. It?s a world-change. It?s the end of an old order, an old estate, an old curiosity.
December 12th, 2005 at 7:00 pm
You read my mind, well, the rest of it that I didn’t already put in writing, somewhere already. Especially about the letters to the editor - I was JUST thinking about that this morning.
Great post, thank you.