Another Blog Flogging from the MSM

Yesterday, Joseph Rago, the Wall Street Journal's assistant editorial features editor, added his voice to the print pundits who see blogs as a symptom of the decline and fall of civility and civilization (for others, go here).

In "The Blog Mob," his essay on the editorial page, Rago opined:

Instant response, with not even a day of delay, impairs rigor. It is also a coagulant for orthodoxies. We rarely encounter sustained or systematic blog thought---instead, panics and manias; endless rehearsings of arguments put forward elsewhere; and a tendency to substitute ideology for cognition. The participatory Internet, in combination with the hyperlink, which allows sites to interrelate, appears to encourage mobs and mob behavior....And in acceding so easily to the imperatives of the Internet, we've allowed decay to pass for progress.

Does this describe CultureGrrl? I hope not. But even the broadminded, veteran culture writer and critic John Rockwell, in his recent ArtsJournal exchange with AJ editor Doug McLennan, talked about "the rise of the feistily independent (or sometimes downright bitchy and mean) voices on the Internet." Hey, Rocks-in-Your-Head Rockwell, are you calling ME "bitchy and mean"? (Just kidding: I LOVE your work, honest!)

For my more considered rejoinder to the blog floggers, hit the second link in the first paragraph of this post, and then go to Part II of "Why I Blog."

And while I'm defending the honor of the "Blog Mob," I must take some credit for a good posting day yesterday: CultureGrrl readers got an early look at two stories (here and here) that NY Times readers only learned about today (here and here). It's not that the Times couldn't have had these up on its website even earlier than I did: They're in Rome and St. Petersburg; I'm not. But the paper-of-record tends to post breaking stories only if they are highly important. For hardcore visual art-lings who want early buzz and pithy commentary, CultureGrrl, I'd like to think, serves a purpose.

Maybe the sluggish Mainstream Media's growing recognition of its need to catch up with nimble bloggers is why David Shipley, my favorite NY Times Op-Ed editor (and I've worked with several) has just taken on the additional assignment of "expanding and enhancing the editorial page's presence online, a new position." What exactly that will mean remains to be seen.

For one thing, he should create readers' comment pages for editorials and Op-Eds by outside contributors. As of now, only the regular NY Times Op-Ed columnists are vouchsafed a comments page. Even more basic: When editorials and opinion pieces refer to specific NY Times articles, those articles ought to be linked.

You don't need a webmaster see which way the wind blows.