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Re: Friday, September 28, 2001
The type of amateur being described could be modeled on the greate golfer of the early 20th century, Bobby Jones. He was the first winner of all four major golf championships of his day; a grand slam: The British Open, British Amatuer, US Open and US Amateur. (The term, Grand Slam was first applied to this feat, appropriately as Jones was also known for his bridge playing.) In this context, we're talking about someone who performs a journalistic function for the love of the effort, and performs at a level of competence comparible to paid professionals (or in this context perhaps, commercial media sites). So perhaps the problem is differentiating between these highly skilled amateurs and the hasty scriblers who publish non-atributed rumor, lies or otherwise bring disrepute to the idiom. We need a word for the (using the golfing metaphor again, not the programmers) hackers of on-line journalism. Perhaps there's a good noun in Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game"? There might be a reader who's more of a fan than I, who can supply the name used there? If there is one? I'll try to look this weekend, but I'm pretty lazy about these things.
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