It's day two and finding something interesting to say is already difficult. I read an article by Christie Blatchford in the Globe and Mail this summer about the impact of blogging on the field of journalism. It kind of dates her, but she brings up some interesting arguments including the argument that writers only have so many words in them before they're sapped dry. I thought that was a little romantic-sounding but her point stands that a lot of bloggers tend to waste their breath (er...dextrous capacity) on posts with little to no thought-provoking content in them. Things like what they ate today, how long the bus took this morning, how many toy poodles there were in the park...all moderately interesting biographical facts about a person's life (although a bit too voyeuristic for me) but as Chrstie brings up: not too engaging.
I don't know much about how the field of journalism is evolving, but I find myself in the Blatchford camp thinking that accounts of everyday occurences do not qualify as journalistic writing. This type of record has its place, perhaps in a book titled "Everyday life in _____ culture" for people who want to know what it's like to live in another culture without actually experiencing it, but don't call that journalism. In my naiive little world, journalism presents everyday information in a way that sparks controversy. It takes a position of some type and makes people compare it with their own opinion.
That is the kind of thing I hope to pull off with what I write here. Let me know if I stray.
Check out The Acorn. I saw them at the Hillside Festival in Guelph this year and was really impressed.
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1 comment:
Agreed. Most blogging is unbelievably boring, because the blogger just brain-dumps into a box on the screen and hits "Publish". The result is rarely interesting to anyone outside the person's immediate social circle. Better, sez I, to wait until you have something worth saying, and then say it as articulately as you can. Which is probably why I don't blog more often (it certainly has nothing to do with laziness).
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