Joseph Rago: Small-Minded Youth

With apparently no knowledge of the interesting reporting on various topics, some international, Pajamas Media has started doing; no appreciation for the new media transforming quality of Michelle Malkin's work via Hot Air; the unique journalistic efforts of individuals such as Bill Roggio, BillINDC, Michael Totten and, increasingly, many others - the WSJ's Joseph Rago decided to opine on the blogosphere from his, at least in his mind, rather lofty perch.

I suppose one could forgive The Wall Street Journal's Joseph Rago for his incredibly small-minded view of blogs given that he's just out of Dartmouth and perhaps still looking to impress. But, heck, the blogosphere's job is neither to forgive, nor to forget. But I digress.

The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.

Heavens, what imagery, one day Mr. Rago should consider doing a screenplay for Jaws 17, or whatever the number is now. I imagine that bit of fiction would be better received than his current one seems to have been.

The loquacious formulations of late Henry James, for instance, owe in part to his arthritis, which made longhand impossible, and instead he dictated his writing to a secretary. In this aspect, journalism as practiced via blog appears to be a change for the worse. That is, the inferiority of the medium is rooted in its new, distinctive literary form. Its closest analogue might be the (poorly kept) diary or commonplace book, or the note scrawled to oneself on the back of an envelope--though these things are not meant for public consumption. The reason for a blog's being is: Here's my opinion, right now.

It occurs to me that Mr. Rago hasn't yet come to appreciate the fact that people today read what they choose to read. Short of his graduate adviser or an over-indulgent parent, can you honestly read that paragraph above and think that any one would read Mr. Rago voluntarily, except perhaps out of unconditional love? Good heavens, Rago - don't write like you're already on the dusty back shelf at the book mart so much before your time! - you'll get there, eventually.

Most likely too caught up in his own mind, feverishly typing away to impress ... at least himself, if no one else, our young Mr. Rago fails to understand the most important aspect of all when it comes to blogging ... interactivity!

For the most part, this is a discussion out here, young Mr. Rago. It isn't about preserving one and only one priceless moment in time - you know, like they do on that best female vocalists of the nineties CD you have in the changer in the Porsche Mums and Da gave you when you graduated Dartmouth.

The MSM you seem so quick to defend has never been about a conversation and that, more than anything, is why it's in trouble. Welcome to the real world beyond the Ivy League. Sorry, things do move a little faster out here. Heavens, Joey, do you ever even floor than damn Porsche?

Welcome to the world, Joe - now here's a clue: when you talk to your neighbor over the back fence, assuming you ever do have a neighbor, or a back fence, if you get my drift, ... try not to talk like your giving a lecture in World Lit. 101, or you might just end up being known as nothing more than some young asshole from Dartmouth with a Porsche who just moved in next door!

See Ace for more.

Comments

[Phoenix]

Wanna bet Joey has spent the day, and will the night, reading blogs to see how his piece was received?

I sure hope he doesn't miss that he, at least temporarily, united the Linkosphere in laughing at the latest pencil-pushing-drooling-wannabe.

[SlimeBallofTheRealm]

A lot of blogs I read are mostly interactive examiners of the news or letter to the editor type of affairs.

I am sure some blogger commenting on a story in the MSM is supposed to counter with his well developed inside the pentagon source or his source at the British Embassy or perhaps even in some office of the Russian bureaucracy.

We don't have those kind of sources obviously unless you deal with a very specific blogger.

The most the press has to worry about is the threat of someone doing a reasonable look at there story and trying to decide if it just that, a story or indeed factual news.

Other than that bloggers delve into social issues and political issues with a big picture analysis to try to view our world and comment on it.

The blogs as a whole seem to be a developing welcome check and balance to the credibility of the MSM.