Comments on: Blogger, Reporter, Author

By: Reporter/Blogger/Reporting/Blogging | Journalism Fast Forward

Reporter/Blogger/Reporting/Blogging | Journalism Fast Forward — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 20:17:50 +0000

[…] Carmody tries to take apart both the reporter/blogger split and the reporting/blogging split. Now, [reporting and blogging] are […]

By: This Week in Review: An objectivity object lesson, a paywall is panned, and finding the blogger’s voice » Nieman Journalism Lab

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 17:08:10 +0000

[…] set of characteristics, taking particular exception to Ambinder’s ego dichotomy. Tim Carmody mused on blogging, voice, and authorship; and Robin Sloan defended Ambinder’s decision to leave the […]

By: Christopher Mims

Christopher Mims — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 23:13:09 +0000

And sometimes writers can be both reporters and bloggers in the same blog. I enjoy trying both, and sometimes even mixing the two. Is my opinion more authoritative because I researched something, transcribed an interview with a source on the subject, and can back up my blathering with their expertise? I sure hope so.

By: Saheli

Saheli — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 22:47:50 +0000

Well, hmm. To me, seasoned reporter means someone who has the experience to have built up a lot of intuition about where to look, about who’s lying, about what pieces of evidence really move the story along, about how to get those pieces. And there are some experienced, skillful reporters. I was recently amused at this pleasing phenomena: that every so often, a non-media-oriented scientist friend jumps up and down at some amazing NYT investigative piece, enthusiastically telling me about it. “Who wrote it,” I interrupt at some point, and they check, and without fail, it’s Michael Moss, who co-taught my RW1 class at Columbia. Something about his thoroughness and the telling institutional flaws that he hones in on is like intellectual catnip to certain friends of mine. They have no idea who Michael is, yet they love the cleverness of his reporting and the style of his casebuilding. (He recently published a doozy about government cheese.) When I say, “seasoned reporter,” I mean someone like that.

By: Tim Carmody

Tim Carmody — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 15:32:34 +0000

Alexis has a very different profile from, say, Nicholas Jackson, who also blogs/works full-time for the Atlantic Tech. NJ’s got a picture on his posts, but Alexis has one in the sidebar under “Voices.” Alexis makes videos for the Atlantic Tech. NJ’s a reporter/writer/blogger/producer, but Alexis is an editor/columnist.

I’m not saying Alexis *is* a personality like Andrew Sullivan, or that he has the same name recognition, or that he does similar work. I’m saying that structurally, he is an author on that site and on the tech channel in a way that other contributors are not.

By: Tim Maly

Tim Maly — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 15:21:34 +0000

I’m not sure that Alexis fits where you’ve got him on that list. I know his stuff and you do but that’s because we know him I think. He’s not foregrounded the way the others are, and I bet there’s a lot of people who know The Atlantic Tech Channel has started to rule lately without knowing why. Though Alexis does have a profile because of longshot and his speaking. Which I guess makes him more like Kottke?

By: Tim Carmody

Tim Carmody — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 07:29:24 +0000

That row in turn reminds me of this post I wrote the other day on Wired about how words get used in debates to cut off conversation, pull rank, mark identities, draw fighting lines. Also: one of the other preconceptions about reporters and reporting is that it's something that benefits from "seasoning." Like getting shook up in a ziploc baggie with salt and vinegar and a chipotle pepper for a few hours or so. Jay Rosen, in a different context, calls it "the church of the savvy." Sadly, most veteran or pseudo-veteran reporters are neither seasoned nor savvy. At best, they're pickled.

By: Chris Meadows

Chris Meadows — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 06:16:01 +0000

This puts me in mind of a little argument I'm having with Dan Bloom in the comments on a post on TeleRead. I referred to a blog post by Clay Shirky as an "editorial"—and Bloom, a reporter of the old school, disagrees with that term, even though Merriam-Webster says it's correct usage. ("a newspaper or magazine article that gives the opinions of the editors or publishers; also : an expression of opinion that resembles such an article"). The funny thing to me is that if you just changed "newspaper or magazine" to "publication" in that first part of the definition, it would be correct in both senses.

By: Saheli

Saheli — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 01:31:03 +0000

And that colors — I won’t say distorts, but I almost mean that — our perception of what blogging is. This, btw, gets at what was going to be my alternative submission to Liberal Arts 2.0. (Oh how I regret not finishing the one I did submit.) Distinguishing between the phase space you've seen a phenomena explore, the phase space it has explored, the phase space it could possibly ever explore, the phase space that's currently actually accessible for it to explore, and the phase space it's probably actually going to explore. Blogging is like a little cloud of gas that has only been released from its bottle nanoseconds ago. Who knows how it will end up filling the room?

By: Saheli

Saheli — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 01:23:37 +0000

engravings of René Descartes were particularly popular, so a lot of 17th-century authors’ pictures are actually Descartes.

Best throw-away tangential trvia award.