2. The word “blog” is short for web-log, a nod
back to the first functions of blogs as a personal
web-logs, or online diaries.
They were sometime one or two-page affairs
where users posted thoughts, dream logs, family
pictures and resumes, for professional purposes.
Users also mused on the news of the day.
They weren’t called blogs, at first… just
personal webpages.
4. the first blogger
According to Wire Magazine Jorn Barger was the first to use the
term “blog” on December 17, 1997 to describe his collection of
online chronicles.
5. • After that, users became known as“bloggers.”
• The space they occupied became the
“blogosphere.”
• Many bloggers began to fancy themselves citizen
journalists.
• Bloggers were not initially beholden to basic
tenets of journalism i.e. fact-checking.
• Blogosphere became a toilet of rants.
• Bloggers were marginalized and vilified by the
MSM, who already looked upon the Internet
largely as a repository of pornography and
propaganda.
6. Bloggers began to see the benefit of fact-checking and “shoe-leather” reporting.
13. • In the early part of this century, Bloggers began
taking political postures, and pushing back
against conventional mainstream news-think.
• They learned to use the Freedom of Information
Act, local public records and other research tools
of the Internet to debunk mainstream news
hokum.
• Still mainly seen by the MSM as entertainment
and gossip-driven snark.
• RatherGate changed news media forever.
14. On the CBS program 60 Minutes veteran newsman Dan Rather
did a segment on President George Bush questioning his military
service, based largely upon his acquisition of what came to be
called the Killian Documents, after the colonel who allegedly
signed off on them.
16. • Skeptical bloggers immediately researched the
documents: everything from the typeface to
the signatures involved and proved them to be
forgeries.
• CBS apologized.
• Dan Rather resigned behind the scandal.
• Public doesn’t trust the media much.
17. Journalist Jayson Blair was forced to resign from the New York Times after he was
caught plagiarizing and fabricating elements of his stories.
Post Jason Blair,--2003--the public doesn’t trust the mainstream to get the facts right.
18. • Before RatherGate, bloggers were perceived
as a bunch of right-wing gun-hobbyists, with
an occasional hipster thrown in.
• After RatherGate, bloggers became respected.
• The media learned that all kinds of people
blog.
• More people started blogging, and learning
basic HTML code and blogging evolved.
• Bloggers became reporters: They have rules,
however loose, that mirror conventional rules
of reporting.
19. • Not only had blogging become respectable,
but more and more it became the place
people turned to for news.
• The public latch onto bloggers with similar
worldviews and sensibilities.
• Bloggers use links to select news stories,
research and other notation to prop up and
butress their worldview.
20. • Initially blogs, like the Internet were not
viewed as a threat to print media.
• Print tried to minimize the hit by charging for
web content.
• Forced to rethink the conventional business
model.
• Print, forced to give away content, sees
decline.
21. • Newspapers decide to blog.
• Staff become bloggers, no extra pay typically.
• Tricky business, as blogging is worldview
(opinion)-driven and newspapers broker in
facts and figures.
• By and large, newspaper blogs have failed to
capture the attention of the public.
• Readers don’t care what professional
reporters, analysis and pinheads think.
• They care what their butcher thinks.
22. Journalist credentials
• jimi izrael is an award-winning reporter and culture-critic from East Cleveland, Ohio. His work
appears in the Los Angeles Times, Salon.com, USA Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The
Chicago Tribune, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The American Spectator, The Plain Dealer,
The Milwaukee Sentinel and many other newspapers and popular media. He maintained a
regular column for AOLBlackvoices.com for 7 years, until 2005 when he took a job with the
editorial board of the Lexington Herald-Leader in Lexington, Kentucky. Known as progenitor
of “the hip-hop opinion, and by his credo (it’s hard but it’s fair) he is chair of the Hip-Hop
Journalism Association. He’s a sought-after pundit and culture critic appearing on talk radio
and television news panels internationally and from coast to coast, including CSPAN, Fox's
Hannity and Colmes, The O'Reilly Factor, The Larry Elder Show, XM Radio and he’s a regular
voice on various shows on National Public Radio, including Day to Day, News and Notes, Talk
of the Nation and WHYY’s Radio Times. Media blog Gawker named izrael a “talking head to
watch,” and his mother brags about that all the time. Really.
• jimi izrael speaks on college campuses like Temple University, Case Western Reserve
University, Rollins College, Cleveland State University and Winston Salem University on topics
ranging from alternative journalism, opinion, the hip-hop narrative in media and editorial
writing to popular music, film, pop culture, the hip-hop aesthetic and politics. He has a BA in
communications from Cleveland State University and a Master of Fine Arts Degree from
Spalding University. Currently, he’s writing a memoir slated for release on St. Martin’s Press in
Fall of 2009, blogging for TVOne Online, the Washington Post’s The Root.com and hosting a
weekly segment for National Public Radio’s show Tell Me More with Michel Martin. He muses
often at www.jimiizrael.com.
23. Blogging Credentials
www.jimiizrael.com
“The Hardline” for the WASHINGTON POST-backed The Root.com
“Primary Colors” for TV ONE Online
Moderates “The Barbershop for NPR’s Tell Me More w/ Michel Martin
Middle-class black male with common American narrative, uncommon candor.
Dominating principle: “it’s hard but it’s fair
24. • Corporate media bloggers are sometimes fired
for blogging… this is called being
“DOOCED”
25. Heather Armnstrong aka “Dooce”
Fired from her dot-com job in 2000
for writing about her job on her
personal blog.
26. Rishawn Biddle
Biddle was fired from his job as blogger and editorial
writer at the Indianapolis Star for comments and
characterizations he made about local politicos on the
company’s blog.
27. Bloggers get Book Deals
www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com got a six figure book-deal
28. Other Blogger Book-Deals
• •Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq by the pseudonymous Riverbend,
a twentysomething Iraqi (in stores). The book contains a year's worth of
blog entries (riverbendblog.blogspot.com) about living in war-torn
Baghdad.
• •Anonymous Lawyer (tentative title) by Jeremy Blachman (fall 2006). The
Harvard Law student's fictional blog (anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com) is
the basis for a novel in blog form about life inside a law firm where a
senior partner commits an indiscretion that gets blown out of proportion.
• •I'm Not the New Me: A Memoir by Wendy McClure (April 26). The book
covers the same territory as McClure's Web site (Poundy.com): her
struggles with weight and body image.
• •My War by Colby Buzzell (fall). In the memoir, the U.S. Army soldier,
whose blog entries (cbftw.blogspot.com) depict the Iraq war from the G.I.
point of view, will expand on his front-line reports.
• •Straight Up & Dirty: A Memoir by Stephanie Klein (April 2006). Klein's
book, like her Sex and the City-like blog (stephanieklein.blogs.com), will
recount her life as a divorcée in New York.
30. • Celebrity Gossip Blog
• Protest Blog
• Political Blog
• Entertainment Blog
• Music Blog
• Vanity Blog
• Corporate Media News Blog
• Everyone has a blog
31. • Editorial writers
• Sports reporters
• Feature writers
• Columnists
• Editorial cartoonists
… this are the job positions most impacted by blogging
• Newspapers are being forced to downsize. USAToday’s
regionality will become the new business model for daily
journalism
• With the cost of production vs. profit, print as we know it
can not survive.
• There will always be reporter, but the newspaper we know
today may not always be around
32. Professional Bloggers
• Journalism background
• Good writing skills
• Emblematic
• Have a number of cosigners
• Cultural touchstones
33. • Today blogging is a viable vocation
• Blogs are sold to companies for millions of
dollars because of the number and kinds of
eyes they garner.
• Blogs with a certain worldview capture a
certain market share, and that makes shilling
to that demographic easier
• Now that corporate America sees there is a
profit to be made, there are many types of
blogs today.
34. • Journalists and reporter of tomorrow will have
to be trained with two lenses:
• One objective and dissected
• One subjective and personal
• Blogging has encouraged a new intimacy of
discourse and conversation. Readers want to
know what and how you think
35. How can I be a Blogger?
• Be a good writer
• Develop a critical mind
• Hone and own a unique point of view
• Report
• Know the marketplace… have a goal and
objective
• Learn the technology
• Be multimedia, all day
• Blogging is a contact sport--be ready to show and
prove, stand and defend your worldview
36. How To Write for A Blog
• Brevity is important
• Ability to make and sustain an argument
• Most if not all points backed by links
• Creativity is appreciated
• Relevancy is key
• Forthrightness and moral conviction: right or
wrong, are you ready to be challenged?
37. Blog War
Worldview vs. Worldview
Bloggers use rhetorical skill and the ability to make and sustain arguments.
Commenters take sides and coronate a winner.
CON: Terribly subjective, easily manipulated. Get very personal, very quickly
PRO: Fun to watch, great way to develop rhetorical skill
A lot like a break-dance battle: The two breakers are the bloggers, and the audience is
the commenters.
