Well, it isn't any drier across the channel, I'm sorry to report. Crap weather put the kibash on my beach-lolling plans (though I could now write a book on the unique charms of budget hotels in Brittany and Normandy.) I did, however, get a chance to catch up on my novel reading. I liked On Beauty well enough I guess, but by the end of the book I was heartily sick of every single one of the characters, none of whom are particularly likable. Better was the sad and brilliant Never Let Me Go, which still has me thinking about it days later. Read it.
And I also managed to get to a couple of magazines I've been hoarding for a while. I can reccommend Nicholas Lemann's piece on blogging and citizen journalists in the New Yorker, which will definitely infuriate some folks, since his point seems to be that despite the hype, citizen journalism isn't all that interesting or successful at this stage. And no matter how healthy and vital it becomes, the citizen media will never put the professionals out of work. Though there are moments of just the sort of print media hauteur you'd expect from the Dean of Columbia Journalism school (he goes out of his way to make Jeff Jarvis look like an ass) Lemann's a lot more even-handed than I expected him to be. And I think his basic conclusion is correct.
2 comments:
Jeff Jarvis does come back with some very valid points now that he's had some time to think about it:
http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/networked/
And any newspaper that looks to work with its readers, just like the days of the parish-pump, will only benefit.
Yeah, I read his column in the media guardian about it yesterday, just after I posted that. He seems to be saying that there never was a conflict between citizen journalists and pros, and that they need to work together more. I don't think what the two are saying is in conflict, really - but it was weird the way Lemann singled Jarvis out like that.
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