Who Needs Blogs?

While mining for anything about blogging and the Democratic National Convention, I stumbled upon another consideration. Some people are asking: “Who needs blogs, anyway?”

I might add to this with my own “who needs the ‘who needs blogs anyway?’ question anyway?” After all, the question is little more, on the surface, than the common sense notion that you can’t take everything on the Internet as gospel — and that’s the point.

In a world where subjective truth is very true, and where the individual is king, “The Press” cannot be synonymous with “The Truth”, or can it? I think the twenty-first century press is going to be more like history than it is like science. What I mean is, we will have accounts, not facts. There are, after all, only accounts of facts in the end, anyway.

I dare you: bring me a fact, Go on — oh wait… no… you brought me an account of a fact. Or, if you were clever, you caused me to form my own account. Either way, no fact has been presented, really.

Web Logs are notoriously suitable for two things: “journal”ism and theories — ideas, generally speaking, and stories. Web Logs are especially popular because of the way they make it easy for ANYONE to have a forum for these things, and this frustrates the professional journalists and idea mongers. Suddenly, they have competition that doesn’t play by the rules.

The Journalists say things like: “Bloggers Are the Sizzle, Not the Steak: Convention seats do not turn Internet gossips into journalists.”

Others, like Jay Rosen take a more moderate approach:

“Because I participate in both worlds–the press establishment and the self-publishing revolution represented by blogging–I feel I should interpret one to the other.”

This approach seems like a rare one though, among journalists and also among other professional sayers-of-things, such as the academic literary people.

There is a fine selection of literary web logs out there, offering up some insightful criticism and in some interesting ways. One particularly enjoyable source for this kind of stuff is Daniel Green. Mr. Green says about himself:

By training I am an academic (specialty: contemporary American literature), but several years ago I essentially abandoned academe to focus on my writing.

This allows him a unique perspective on the matter of what blogs are good for, and he delivers it in a clear-headed way: He simply keeps his web log full of articulate and insightful critical thinking about literature.

I’ve arrived once more at my original point: “who needs the ‘who needs blogs anyway?’ question anyway?” What matters is not the medium that you have, how its defined, or even so much what others are doing with it; what matters is whether or not it can be used well. I’m sure there are a variety of ways to use it well. My bias is towards a certain kind of way… I’ll cite an example of what I mean, which I’ve picked up from Ron Silliman

my interest in blogging can be looked at from two perspectives. First, I was seeking out a medium for myself that would let me organize my thinking with regards to poetry, poetics & the concentric circles of intellectual & social activity that surround them. Second, I was hoping to nudge along other poets into doing something of the same thing … on the general theory that I learn as much or more from reading as I can from writing.