If Blogs Are Becoming More Like Newspapers, They’re Still Not Quite There Yet

One of Gawker’s night (+weekend, now, I guess?) editors, Ravi Somaiya, wrote this piece yesterday about how blogs are becoming more like newspapers. Naturally, it grabbed my attention, since my experience is with newspapers (which are, you know, not doing so hot), and I intern at a blog (Gawker, in fact. When worlds collide!!)

While I agree that blogs can be great at summarizing or repackaging or expanding content with commentary or analysis or a fresh angle, etc. (and that that, and no longer “rehashed news stories with a dash of puerile snark,” is what they must rely on to be competitive), it seems to me like it would be very difficult for blogs — at least in their current form and on a broad scale — to legitimately compete with newspapers for news.

Attention-grabbing headlines, editorial transparency, and heated competition for readers may be things that blogs have in common with newspapers, but they’re also what blogs have in common with cable TV punditry. (Well, maybe not the transparency part, but you get the idea.)

But becoming more like newspapers (emphasis on the news part)? I’m not sure we’re quite there yet. More »

Did The New York Times’ Bill Keller Diss Gawker? Only Kind Of

Foster Kamer, the weekend editor over at Gawker.com, posted a great item this evening about Clark Hoyt’s take on this bizarre “New York Times is about to drop a David Paterson bombshell” story.

Hoyt included a quote where head Times honcho Bill Keller’s “called out” Gawker’s coverage of the story, and Foster had an (understandable) objection. But was it warranted? More »

Pray For Fewer Kneejerk Reactions — Col 2:4

So there may or may not be a bunch of Right-wing, Bible-thumping Internet crazies who are currently hijacking religious verses to make thinly veiled death threats against Barack Obama on T-shirts, bumper stickers, and mugs.

But, since it’s a juicier story and makes the Christian Crazies look even nuttier than usual, some of us have — erroneously — gone ahead and assumed that is, indeed, the case.

On Wednesday, Gawker’s John Cook ran an item about this wacky new Internet meme that encourages religious conservatives to clasp their hands together and “Pray for Obama.”

Specifically, it refers to Psalm 109:8, which reads: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”

Some of us, meanwhile, have jumped to the conclusion that it’s actually the religious right’s way of hiring God the Cosmic Hit Man to “do” Barack.

More »