TOJ details a radio exchange between old school journos Pete Hamill and Fred Dicker, recounted at Gangrey.com:
Dicker: “... You can take a look at these newspapers blogs. The bloggers seem to me, Pete, to be basically opinionated stenographers, writing basically for shut-ins. I can’t imagine who would spend their time reading these things except a very rarefied, small group of people.”
Hamill: “I don’t read them, because life is too short. But I advise the young journalist, don’t waste your talent on blogs. Get to a newspaper, no matter how small, where there’s an editor who will look at your copy and say this will be better if you do this. Go somewhere where you learn the craft. Most blogs are therapy. But they’re not journalism. People who write them, except for the professional propaganda blogs, are there for therapy.
At that point, TOJ's Mindy McAdams opens the can of proverbial whoopass:
"Writing for shut-ins"? Wow, where does that come from? So the 80-year-olds reading the printed newspaper -- they are the vibrant lifeblood of society? And all you blog readers out there -- you're a bunch of lumps on a log, do-nothings, hardly worth consideration.
But wait, there's more:
It would be great to have the tutelage of a good editor, no doubt about it. But I have to wonder what your chances are, nowadays, of getting a good editor at a newspaper. Maybe there is a good editor, but will he or she have any time to work with you?
As the kids today say: Oh SNAP! Oh, no she did-n't.
Okay, at this point, I'm embarassing myself.
But the exchange does reflect the fact that for a certain segment of journalists, the Internet is still lacking in value ... still a Wild West for computer nerds and geeks.
Gotta get over that folks. Fast. Like ... yesterday.
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