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Thursday, October 23, 2003
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 Thursday, October 23, 2003
started 10/23/2003; 12:06:41 AM - last post 10/23/2003; 12:39:24 PM
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Doc Searls - Thursday, October 23, 2003 
10/23/2003; 4:06:41 AM (reads: 6493, responses: 2)
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The Third J 
| | Dan Gillmor calls it Journalism 3.0 (or 3.01b2). J.D. calls it New Media or Online Journalism (in his blog and day job roles). Yesterday I called it a kind of Third Way — neither cooly detached nor heatedly partisan, but rather engaged. I explained what I meant just enough to raise some good questions and answers from Jay Rosen. In "Blogging is About Making and Changing Minds.", he sees my one-liner and raises it by too many insights to count. Go read the post. It does a better job of explaining What We're Up To Here than anything else I've read about the subject. To get you started, here's a sample: |
| | Sure, weblogs are good for making statements, big and small. But they also force re-statement. Yes, they¹re opinion forming, but they are equally good at unforming opinion, breaking it down, stretching it out, re-building it around new facts. Come to some conclusions? Put them in your weblog, man, but just remember: it doesn¹t want to conclude. |
| | People trying to explain their attraction to the weblog form say it¹s conversational, two way, personal, a medium for the individual voice — plus interactive with our untold wealth in information, and fun. All true. Doc adds something: weblogging is an inconclusive act — and that¹s attractive, part of the fun. |
| | The cool, neutral, professional style in journalism says: get both sides and decide for yourself. The hotter, more partisan press says: Decide for yourself — which side? — then go get information. The weblog doesn¹t want to be either of these, but it checks and balances both. |
| | Two key infrastructural facts make the weblog style possible. One is the boundless hyperlinked library called the Web, to which every blog adds something with every post. The other is syndication, which sends out notifications of every post, making back-and-forth more engaging than ever. |
| | One other fact is also significant, though it's hardly infrastructural; and that's the lack of deadlines and obligations to employers. This is the "amatuer" state Dave talks about, which in various ways applies even to professionals like Jay, J.D. Dan and myself. |
On the other wing...
| | But then you've got Boing Boing and Yours Truly, which both tend to avoid politics, except when lawmakers and regulators start screwing with technology, in which case we tend to lean on the Libertarian side. |
| | Or at least I do. Mostly I try only to express political opinions when I'm reasonably sure that they might be interesting and at least somewhat nonpredicable. At least that's what I like to think I do. Truth be told, I mostly write about stuff I think won't take too much time. |
| | Hey, I have a job to do. This isn't it. |
| | Anyway, Dana makes a bunch of well-sourced Good Points. Also some I disagree with, but I'll let them go for now, since it'll take time to pursue them and I'd rather sleep, frankly. I have a huge amount of real-job-type writing to catch up on today. |
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Dana Blankenhorn - Re: Thursday, October 23, 2003
10/23/2003; 1:54:39 PM (reads: 470, responses: 1)
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I am glad you disagree with some points, Doc, and I look forward to hearing more about them once you dig out of your deadlnes. (I'm hoping to have deadlines to dig out of again Real Soon Now.)
I am always surprised at which notes I write get play and which don't. I have noted that most of those which get play on what-is-supposed-to-be-a-tech-blog (like this one) are those with some political angle. Like this one.
It would be worthwhile, then, to ask why those who read blogs are so interested in politics. Is it just a function of our times? Or is this built into the nature of the medium?
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Doc Searls - Re: Thursday, October 23, 2003
10/23/2003; 4:39:24 PM (reads: 567, responses: 0)
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I guess I just disagree with the suggestion (or the implication, anyway) that political polemics in the blog world are little different than those in the more detached worlds of print and broadcast. Strongly held though their opinions may be, I sense in Reynolds, Sullivan, Sawicky, Kos, Kaus and others more than a small degree of open-mindedness -- or at least a willingness -- to engage readers, and other bloggers, in a conversation that goes somewhere beyond their committed positions.
Glenn Reynolds especially seems to go out of his way to be fair, open and nonjudgemental about subjects where his opinions aren't complete, or where the facts are not all in place. I believe that's one reason why he is so widely read, and why he serves as a resource for so many.
On the nonpolitical (techblogger) side, even highly opnionated guys like Dave Winer are often wide open to other opinions, and to having their own opinions changed. I've seen this happen many times. My 1997 letter to Dave in about Steve Jobs is just one example.
Bottom line, I don't think the kind of partisan punditry that works on editorial pages and talk shows would work very well here. This is where the rubber of opinion meets the road of reality. We're not behind podia or pulpitizing on op ed pages here. We're going after knowledg, and we're doing it together. There's a limit to how closed you can be and still add useful material to ongoing discussions, much less attract any readers besides the ones that want to scratch behind your ears.
As for the attraction of politics right now, I think it has everything to do with The Times (and I don't mean the newspaper). For better or worse, 9-11 put is into a new context. The war efforts that followed have kept us there. And now we're in a presidential election season that will continue for the next year. We have at least one candidate who has been engaged by the Net in a huge way. There will be others. This gives us a lot to talk about.
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