One of the blogs I like to read is Sparkwood & 21. I used to link to it, but eventually dropped the link because it has links to almost every blog in the country except mine.** The author of Sparkwood & 21 is Brittney Gilbert, who just got a job to write the content for a blog (Nashville Is Talking) on behalf of WKRN-TV in Nashville. The blogging world is abuzz about her new gig.
While I am happy for Ms. Gilbert, since she now has a job she likes (and I hope the contentment doesn't kill her creativity), I'm not sure I quite understand all the fuss. This is not, as one blogger argued, "one of the biggest changes since the invention of the printing press." There are plenty of paid bloggers out there. I've seen dozens. I'm sure there are many more that I have not seen. There was an Orange Bowl blog, and a USC football blog, and a tour de france blog, and a Super Bowl blog. The Orlando Sentinel had a hurricane blog. Trial.com has one. Plenty of TV stations and newspapers have made crappy little blogs, short term or long term, that were written by journalists. The late Allan Malamud's column for the L.A. Times -- Notes on a Scorecard -- would have been a great sports blog if they had only put it on the web. The Times and the Register already have columns in the sports and entertainment sections that are, frankly, just like blogs. And from the looks of things, they are quite a bit like what Nashville is Talking will be like.
I don't mean to belittle this career move. It's a great move for her. Ms. Gilbert was sick of waiting tables and she is now going to be paid to write for a TV station, which, from what I've read, is the sort of thing she's wanted to do all along. But she isn't going to be able to slap a WKRN logo to the top of her own blog and call in payroll. She will be, essentially, a reporter.
The only difference I see between those other blogs I mentioned above and Nashville is Talking is that the others were written by journalists who were initially hired as journalists. Brittney Gilbert was hired because of the exposure she got from her blog. In other words, the only novelty is that it was her blog that got her foot in the door of the MSM. It was a slick move, but not one that foretells the future media mogul status of the rest of us with our own little weblogs.
** Do you know the difference between a blogging whore and a blogging bitch? A blogging whore links to everybody. A blogging bitch links to everybody but me.
Does anyone know of a place where you can read the great Alan Malamud's column "Notes on a Scorecard"?
Thank you!
Posted by: Phillip Torres | March 23, 2006 at 14:39
See Lex...Brittney's got good taste and she certainly knows a good blog when she reads one! As for my blog, I doubt my newest post on Sea Monkey's and Mold-A-Rama is worth linking to; just retro fodder for the soul.
Posted by: Retro Girl | May 02, 2005 at 22:27
First of all, I should apologize outright for my oversight. I see you so often in my referrer links that I assumed you were on the blogroll as well. I suck. I've said so before.
You are there now, of course, and so are you Retro Girl. Because I like to add blogs that matter.
And I think I'll refrain from thinking about my job in such huge, broad terms and focus on tomorrow's content and how to gate using my new badge. I can deal with the philosophy later.
But ya'll go right ahead.
Oh, and new rule. [Don't shoot the messenger.]
Posted by: brittney | May 02, 2005 at 21:16
That may all turn out to be true, Billy, but I still think everyone is getting too excited, too soon. That, and I think Brittney would have cracked the MSM a lot sooner had she taken a more conventional path. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.
Posted by: lexicon | May 02, 2005 at 20:06
You make the argument that there are plenty of paid bloggers out there already and to that point you are correct, but you fail to realize the depth of the issue. You see: when MSM companies start hiring bloggers out of the Blogosphere instead of repositioning someone who was already a paid member of their news staff then it proves once and for all that Bloggers can, have, and will continue to change the way the MSM does their business and that is the biggest change since the invention of the printing press.
Perhaps YOU do not yet understand how powerful blogging has allowed YOU to become. Why YOU come to understand how powerful YOU really are then you'll come to understand my point.
PS. And thanks for the link! ;-)
PPS. I'll be adding your blog to my hundreds of outbound links, probably on my "Long Waves" page.
Posted by: Billy The Blogging Poet | May 02, 2005 at 14:20
She may link to almost every blog in the country but she doesn't link to the ones that matter. :)
Posted by: Retro Girl | May 02, 2005 at 13:00