Comments on: Blogging for Misanthropes: A Primer for Plain Dealer Columnists and Others Who Missed the First Boat

By: Tina

Tina — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 14:27:46 +0000

Thanks Will. Regarding the live comment script: it's actually a WordPress plugin created by the fabulous Chris Davis. It's called "Live Preview for Comments" (intuitive name) and you can find it here.

By: Will Kessel

Will Kessel — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 01:42:14 +0000

It’s been said that writers write their best stuff when they write about what they know intimately.

Obviously, Feagler hasn’t an intimate knowledge of anything Internet.

Nice work!

Also, I like this little script thingy that types as you type; can I steal it? ;-)

By: Tina

Tina — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:00:03 +0000

Thanks guys. Tim, to answer your question, publishers pay columnists for the assurance that content will be as accurate as possible and ethically produced, and in an ideal world that would work. Basically, publishers pay columnists for the right to fire them if they screw up badly enough, and to dangle that wage carrot in front of them so that a columnist will produce quality content.

Those of us that only have our reputations and credibility at stake have different carrots dangling in front of us and no wages with which to be threatened. Publishers have leverage over their columnists, where bloggers have, in a sense, gone rogue.

Dick Feagler is the darling of a different generation. Where my generation reads Heather Armstrong and Cory Doctorow, Dick has his own readership, but they’re aging.

We’re not eroding Dick’s economic value, being stuck at the Plain Dealer has done enough of that. He’s embraced the Paul Harvey school of “old-timey” wisdom and lazy, half-hearted research; hardly qualities worthy of Pulitzer journalism. He fears the immediacy of the web, the potential for knee-jerk reactions, but he fails to realize that he’s guilty of those same snarky, hasty reactions–he just gets paid for them. Dick’s lack of pride in his work is slowly poisoning his career–sure, there are sporadic signs of recovery, but they just give us false hope as his writing deteriorates.

By: Tim Ferris

Tim Ferris — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:59:20 +0000

Good piece, lots of salient points. You write better than Richard, for my money, and that’s one of the interesting questions you pose about the “paid” journalists versus the bloggers. If a blogger would write better, deliver quicker, and at a lower cost or no cost, why would a publishing house continue to pay a traditional columnist? Are we all, in fact, eroding Richard’s (George “Dicked” him enough for a lifetime the other day; hence, my “Richarding”) economic value? Or, you might ask, is this erosion of value self-inflicted?

By: George Nemeth

George Nemeth — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 16:58:09 +0000

WOW

By: Jill

Jill — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 16:29:33 +0000

Love it. Thanks.