JKelly VS All the Blogs That Are Fit to Print

Writing for the National Post, J. Kelly Nestruck, -- that's "J." Kelly, not just "Kelly" -- has written an article about bloggers and the blogosphere. JKelly's article is entitled "Why the revolution won't be blogged" and subtitled "Bloggers talk about their importance, but it's just talk." I was impressed that the subtitle was properly punctuated, no small feat in the world of newspapers. I used to draw on newspaper articles to teach punctuation to students. Any newspaper would do: finding examples of bad grammar and punctuation in a newspaper is like shooting fish in a barrel.

JKelly's own blog, On the Fence can be found here. Read it, especially if you just can't get enough of reporters talking about what events they're covering and putting down their colleagues. Maybe that doesn't matter, though, given that he acknowledges his readers don't all read the National Post. Tsk. Tsk. After reading his blog, I, myself, doubt that he's doing much to improve NP readership, either, especially given that he seems to double-dip -- writing about a topic on his blog and then spinning that yarn into a news article later. Yawn.

JKelly essentially took it upon himself to articulate a rather narrow history of the blogosphere and offer an even more narrow opinion about the relationship between journalism and blogging. Besides being so limited in its scope, the article had an air of meanspiritedness that made me think maybe he was just jealous of good bloggers. While JKelly puts down the importance of blogs, others have staked out very different territory on the issue of statements made on the web.

Certainly, JKelly does not appear to have considered the question of the relationship between blogging and journalism as assiduously as NYU's Jay Rosen has, over at PRESSthink. Even still, JKelly purports to give us "the truth" about blogs. Then, after chopping away at them, he finally admits that Dan Rather's recent apology was a blogosphere triumph, well at least for some bloggers, many of whom don't seem to appear on JKelly's list of "approved" blogs.

JKelly concludes his article with the following analogy:

"Bloggers -- alas or hurrah -- are not the giant killers they've been portrayed as lately. They are the plovers who fly into the mouth of the big media crocodiles and keep their teeth clean. If it weren't for the media's bad dental habits, bloggers wouldn't get fed. But if they ever forget their place and start pecking away at the gums, don't believe for a moment that the crocodiles won't snap their jaws shut and swallow them whole."

I'm guessing JKelly aligns himself with the "big media crocodiles" rather than seeing himself as a plaque-picking plover. The problem with the analogy, however, is that, if the bloggers "start pecking away at the gums" (whatever that means), the crocodiles couldn't really do anything about it anyway. The day big media swallows the blogosphere will be the same day someone gathers up all the pebbles on the earth. Besides, JKelly forgot something important -- journalists have started blogging, too.

I don't know what JKelly wants or expects from bloggers, but maybe there's the rub, after all: it's not so much that the blogosphere disappoints, as that JKelly feels disappointed. Instead of acting like the bad editor of the blogosphere and appreciating only those blogs he approves for print, maybe JKelly should revisit his expectations for blogs, recognizing that the blogosphere will never fit into his rather miniscule vision of blogo-truth. However, he'll have to come down off his high horse first in order to do that.

I think I'll conclude with a quotation from JKelly's own blog: "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool" (Touchstone, AYLI).

My wish for you, JKelly: reflexivity, which might lead you to a deeper level of thought and analysis.