micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links |
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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
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Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Monday, July 08, 2002
Ken Layne announced 7 days ago that he was putting his blog on an indefinite hiatus. You can read his reasons for doing this yourself but do note the section where Layne admits to having been a hack journalist at one point: Today, any jackhole can do what I once did for a Major Wire Service: scan the news sites and type up a piece. Some of these volunteer writers are very good. Most are far better than the hacks filling the op-ed pages of the daily paper.Many, if not most, journalists have probably done some work they aren't proud of at one point or another so this really isn't a big deal except that from reading Layne I always got the sense that he viewed himself as being above the hacks. Even more interesting is what Layne has to say about journalism: "Journalism means reporting from various scum pits and glory holes." And then later saying: Sure, I'll give you humorous rants and links to monkey photos. But is that worth anything? Probably not.What? Is Layne actually saying that the future of journalism is reporting and writing stories and not just linking to stories that other people have written? Wait a second, this is my belief and the main reason I pulled back from blogging earlier this year. Quite frankly I think writing articles, essays and reviews is a more productive use of one's time that leads to a more useful finished product and probably are things more people are going to want to read as opposed to links and rants on topics I don't have any real expertise on and haven't spent much time reporting, or in many cases even researching, on. But, having said all that, I don't want to imply that I don't think blogging is useful. I enjoy blogging as sometimes do a lot of it, like I have as of late, and sometimes only a little bit of it, like I probably will do soon or as I did since from late January to mid May over at micahth.diaryland.com. Blogging is fun and sometimes useful tool for just saying things that I feel an urge to say. Hopefully it will soon be a way to better promote more substantial pieces that I write and communicate witht the readers of those pieces. Nor do I want to say that blogging is useless. There is no harm in you or anybody linking to a bunch of stories and give thoughtful and/or glib opinions on them. Just don't think you are changing the world in the process. Blogging may or may not be journalism but it is not reporting and, at the end of the day, that is usually the most useful form of journalism and what I am trying to focus on. |