This is interesting. Nick Carr writes a thoughtful piece on Andy Abramson's pre-CES post, "Creative Video Blogging and the New 'Instant Journalism'" (I wrote about Andy's post yesterday). At first, Nick didn't "get" the piece, complaining that it seemed like "illiterate mush." But then he "realized" (shifting to the ironic voice) that he was "looking at the article through eyes corrupted by years of paying attention to the 'main stream media'." He spends the rest of the piece dissecting, skewering, ridiculing Andy's post. The most interesting moment is when he compares Andy's instant journalism (Andy's phrase) with the new journalism of the 60's. Says Nick:
Now, I vaguely remember somebody else labeling something "the New Journalism" a long time ago. I think that, maybe, Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson and Norman Mailer were involved. But I don't remember any of them being fueled by "Instant Journalism." I think they "composed" their work before they pushed the publish button. So they were probably more like "Old New Journalists" rather than "New New Journalists."
I'm unclear about the object of Carr's scorn. Is it Andy (who was having a bad day), bloggers in general, or blogging in general? But there's no question that the quality of blog content is often poor, and that the rush to publish creates all kinds of opportunities for mistakes (I myself made a spelling error when I first posted about Andy's piece). Carr has played the gadfly before, and I'm guessing he's trying to apply pressure on bloggers to get their act together. After all, he's a blogger himself, and today he, not Andy, is getting all the link love on Techmeme.
By the way, Carr's reference to the new journalism strikes a chord. When Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson and Norman Mailer first hit the scene, they too were slammed for writing illiterate mush (maybe not those words, but close). Critics were wrong, of course. But the new journalists earned the respect of the literary establishment by bringing a new kind of immediacy and artistry to the world of reporting, not by lowering its standards. They're good role models for bloggers, many who are in love with their rebel image. Perhaps I posted the wrong photo yesterday when I first wrote about Andy. Hunter Thompson (another Las Vegas rebel) or a bus called "Further" would have been better. I should have taken my time.
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