DISQUS

Renee · 11 months ago

Izreal should not talk, I have read the woman hating spew that he calls a blog over at the root. Blogging is important in a day and age where mass media is owned by a few companies. There is no such thing as an independent press. This is why they have come down so hard on bloggers, because we have the ability to speak truth to power with little to no repercussions. As soon as they find away to squash the individual blogger, blogging will become an acceptable medium of information gathering.
Bloggins is also very hard work and does not get the respect that it deserves. I have put untold hours into writing, editing and promoting my blog. For me it is a labour of love and the same cannot be said about the mass media. Try and find passion anywhere on the 6 o'clock news I dare you..

Kimberly · 11 months ago

So what happened with Gina?

Ananda Leeke · 11 months ago

Thoughtful post.

lovebabz · 11 months ago

I think Bloggers have a place at the table...hell bloggers have set the table and main stream media can't seem to figure out what dish to bring.

The coolest thing about blogging is the varied and interesting voices out there. Everybody and their mama can have a rant, an opinion, a concern.

It's a big old wide web ocean out there and baby, folks are on the water with paddles, boats, rafts, and yachts!

Good post...very thoughtful.

Anthony Farrior · 11 months ago

I agree w/the above. It's like a throwback to when anyone could make a local newspaper or newsletter and tailor it to their region. That's how the locals stayed up to date on everything and it's how people were organized for a cause. There's nothing new under the sun. It seems some need a history lesson...

rap music · 11 months ago

hell all u gotta do is start blogging your journalism and create an avenue to make it work.

jimi izrael · 11 months ago

jimi izrael here---me, of NPR, www.jimiizrael.com, www.blackpower.com, www.theroot.com, "women hating spew," et al. I think that black power joint gets misread as me casting all bloggers into a dark space. Rather what I'm suggesting is, given a chance to engage, Gina made a choice to reinforce some really ugly stereotypes of bloggers.

I don't know what Gina's issues are with me personally, "Old Media," Nipsey Rusell and I couldn't care less--that "angry black woman" model is so Aunt Esther, so 1983. This was a coming together of professionals, in a professional setting. If you find me so objectionable, or find thee subject jejeune and passe, then why come across country to disrupt the panel? Why not just stay home? I invited her on the panel, and let me say it was a real show, most of which I am too much of a gentleman to share. Suffice it to say, that she didn't change anyone's mind about the face of bloggers, and didn't really illuminate their role in the next media. She did get a chance to call me names and hurl accusations at me face to face, and I guess there is something to be said for confronting your critics. Unfortunately, that wasn't the aim of the panel.

Thanks for reading.

holla!

Lynne d Johnson · 11 months ago

Hey Jimi, s'up.

Journalist vs Blogger is a dead argument. It's dead because journalism is adopting and adapting blogging to stay afloat. Papers and magazines are hiring new media specialists or hoping their editors can get new media trained.

I'm not quite sure how this one example, of one woman's behavior on a panel could signify the relationship between bloggers and journalists, or how her actions could come to be representative of all bloggers.

I've done both the J and the B thing for many years now and I gotta tell you that as far as ego goes, click-thrus and bylines are on par. But I don't think that's what's at question here.

I guess I'm taking aback by writing about an incident that led a person to come to this though: (“Witnessing that panel,” said Amy Alexander, “is one of the reasons I have trepidation about setting up a blog or joining the blogosphere. It’s the same thing with a lot of traditional journalists, because this is the kind of discourse you’re getting.”)

It's the kind of discourse you're getting where and with whom? Which bloggers are you talking to and what are you talking about with them? Are you on the defensive when you engage with them bc all journalism jobs want to know if you have web or blogging experience nowadays? Or is this legit?

Overall, I'm just a in a serious cloud right now. I'm just like whoa. First, there are many trained journalists who blog. And second, there are the "untrained" who blog who don't present "manic Google-traps trying to get click-throughs for ad nickels, so over-done and egomaniacal that many of them can’t dialog beyond the basement."

Would you care to meet some? Just start with the community right here and then branch out to some of our extensions.

This really shouldn't be an us vs them call at all. Keep it where it is -- you weren't happy with this one woman's behavior.

Fredric Mitchell · 11 months ago

@jimi

honestly, all i want is for theroot.com to fix their damn rss feed and publish those joints in full.

wtf is up with that b.s. one sentence preview?

no. seriously....

jimi izrael · 11 months ago

That's not my department.

JaWar · 10 months ago

Anytime you have serious change you'll have a group of people who oppose it. They'll oppose it because they have it good and have had it good for a number of years. They've been the elite secret guard if you would. Change has and always will occur it is the only constant.

I've heard in a number of circles people mentioning that blogging isn't journalism. People who say this don't get it. Writing for a newspaper, magazine or television program isn't journalism. Newspaper, magazines and television or merely methods for distributing information the same way a blog, website, webinar, teleseminar and videos are.

When a writer does extensive research to uncover the truth as unbiasedly as possible and puts that truth to the public does it matter if that truth is told via a print newspaper, magazine, television show, blog, website, teleseminar, webinar or online video? No.

Blogging may or may not be journalism, just as writing may or may not be journalism.

"THINK, PLAN, EXECUTE!" -JaWar