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In a hateful piece of yellow journalism South African Sunday Times columnist David Bullard skewers bloggers as "people who wouldn’t stand a hope in hell of getting a job in journalism."
Most blog sites, he rages, "are the air guitars of journalism.... It’s even sadder when someone reads them."
Bullard's real clincher is where he says bloggers: “... are the sort of wackos who gun down their fellow students at university.” Excuse me, but what's your source, Mr. B?
Hello dear incredibly angry south african dead tree journalist:
- Many professional journalists blog
- There are many blogs (including this one) that have more uniques a week than 999 out of 1,000 print newspapers. Blogs including Slashdot, BoingBoing, The Huffington Post, Engadget and Perez Hilton that have more blogs linking to them than many newspapers have readers.
- Blogs
- help increase press mentions (assuming those are valuable) :>)
- build word of mouth buzz, both positive and negative
- are a kind of a free focus group that let companies know where they stand
- create interactive communities of people who share opinions
- increasingly break news before mainstream media
- can increase search engine ranking
- allow companies to bypass traditional journalists and tell their side of a story directly to the public
- are great for crowd sourcing
- can provide early warning signs of problems a company needs to address
Eric Berlin calls Bullard's column "a hateful, condescending piece" and suggests Bullard turn on his brain before attacking the blogosphere.
Vinny Lingham calls Bullard a "fool with no understanding of new media and it’s impact on society....This is exactly the mentality that is leading to the decline of offline print as a source of information, because the people entrenched in the offline world are so resistant to change, they cannot keep up with the times."
Vincent Maher calls the column "a dazzling display of arrogance."
Says Pierre deVos, "Bullard seems to be rather kind, actually." But then he notes: [Bullard] claims that the content in the Sunday Times is of a certain quality because it has been through editing processes. But one only has to skim that newspapers pages to be made aware of the sorry state of journalism in South Africa. Sometimes I wonder whether those people get paid to write so badly about such brain curdling boring issues. The New York Times it ain’t."
Ironically, on the same day, The Times also published "Business Missing Out on Blogging," which notes: "Blogs tend to be rich in fresh information and relevant news. More importantly, this information can be commented on by the people who visit the blog site. So it is not just a flat brochure, like a website..."
Put that in your pipe with whatever else you're smoking Mr. Bullard.
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Comments
Huh. I was a Journalism major. And every job I've had has to do with writing.
Bonehead.
Posted by: Spike | 05.08.07
Hey BL - interesting that you picked up on this piece. It set the South African blogosphere alight yesterday. I was one of the bloggers who contributed to the "Business Missing Out on Blogging" article of the same newspaper, same day so was particularly tickled by Bullard's rant.
You'd be interested to note that Bullard went on to create his own blog before the end of the same day - http://davidbullard.wordpress.com.
Interesting times in the SA blogosphere!
Posted by: Mike | 05.08.07
Thanks for that blog link, Mike, which (by the way) contains the original rant as its debut post.
It seems to me that David Bullard is pointing direct criticism at anonymous bloggers penning news blogs, and their readers -- who confuse such blogs with actual journalism. He doesn't seem to be targeting the likes of you, or me, or BL... or any of us who publishing business blogs or similar focused publications.
Of course, he doesn't SAY that, exactly... which is too bad and (by the way) pretty irresponsible journalism OR commentary. In other words, he doesn't name any names, nor is he very specific, which I think could have made his case stronger and made him seem like less of a venomous loon.
Posted by: Ann Handley | 05.08.07
BL,
Thanks for introducing us to David. I like the phrase that says he needs to turn his brain on. If that is doable, then I second it.
I nave a degree in journalism, am a former daily newspaper reporter, writer and editor (yes, each job is different from the other), a former magazine editor, a former book editor, the author of 5 books, and a former free-lance writer. Lots of my fellow bloggers can make similar claims.
And, yes, many of us could get journalism jobs. But why would we want to? Blogging allows us to write about whatever we want, to be provocative, and we don't report to an editor for assignments. We choose our own. And usually, if we get the facts wrong, as all journalists do at times, our readers will let us know immediately.
Posted by: Lewis Green | 05.08.07
"And usually, if we get the facts wrong, as all journalists do at times, our readers will let us know immediately."
I can attest to that. :)
Posted by: Cam Beck | 05.08.07
It seems that Bullard and the Sunday Times had no idea that there would be such a massive response to his rants.
They posted a couple of video responses that were sarcastic and almost taunting - shortly before announcing that there was a now Bullard blog.
I think that they have tried to take advantage of the firestorm that erupted by attempting to deflect what he wrote - by himself 'becoming a blogger'.
Posted by: Angus | 05.08.07
I thought the same thing, Angus. But then again, it turns the whole thing from attacking to just plain weird...
Posted by: Ann Handley | 05.08.07
he's not the first and he won't be the last to launch his blog with an attack on bloggers.
I guess that's something people do who don't think what they say will be interesting enough to stand on its own.
And I too have a degree in journalism and have worked as a reporter. Blogging is much more fun, and, for me, more lucrative too.
Posted by: B.L. Ochman | 05.08.07
Well, his publicity stunt worked really well. With all the traffic he's bringing in to sundaytimes.co.za he'll be able to ask for a raise soon.
Posted by: Vaughn | 05.09.07
That link baiting little prick has a video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dave+bullard&search=Search in which he taunts bloggers that his column probably got more hits than their blogs. He got me, and I have to admit, he's pretty funny.
Posted by: B.L. Ochman | 05.09.07
Interesting how Mr. Bullard created some wonderful publicity for himself by writing such a nasty rant. Now everyone knows about his blog when they otherwise wouldn't have known or cared one bit. Turn on his brain? Looks like he did. He wasn't nice, but he was very effective at creating buzz.
Posted by: Melissa | 05.10.07
B.L., the guy clearly seems to be a jerk and off-base, but you played into his hand by publicizing him and pointing people in his direction. I, for one, won't look at his blog or his YouTube video. I don't care what he has to say and I won't contribute to the number of hits he gets.
Let him languish in a cyber vacuum.
Posted by: David Reich | 05.10.07
Good point, David. Some people would say anything for publicity.
Posted by: Kristen Shue | 05.10.07