Author Of Infamous "Blog Rage" Piece Says Bloggers Are Real Journalists
February 29, 2008 -- 3:24 PM EST // //
Via Romenesko, the executive editor of WashingtonPost.com, Jim Brady, has offered up some extremely sensible thoughts about the relationship between bloggers and the traditional media:
“I think the argument about bloggers vs. journalists has been over for years,” said Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com. “We’ve all co-existed just fine for a while now, and the truth is, the distinction is less relevant every day. There are thousands of journalists who now blog, and there are lots of bloggers who are trained journalists.”It's true that bloggers and journalists are starting to learn to co-exist quite nicely, and indeed, the distinction is losing relevance every day, as Brady says. But I'm not flagging this merely because Brady's right. Rather, I'm noting it because Brady's thoughts are particularly interesting in the context of a now-forgotten piece of ancient history that took place all the way back in 2006.“I don’t think readers care whether what they’re reading is in a blog or not. What they care about is whether they trust the source of that information, whether it’s a mainstream site or a pure blog.”
Specifically, I'm talking about the fact that Brady was for a time one of the Great Villains of the blogosphere. I don't remember the particulars of it now, but there was some fracas involving WaPo Ombud Deborah Howell that resulted in Brady being hit by one of the fiercest blogswarms of this millennium.
In response, Brady wrote an infamous piece, entitled "BLOG RAGE" (caps in original) in which he shared his feelings about having been "mugged by the blogosphere." Though there was a bit of positive stuff about the blogosphere in the piece, it was widely panned as a kind of reactionary anti-blog manifesto.
Anyway, in light of that history, Brady's welcome remarks about the eroding distinctions between journalists and bloggers seemed significant, or at least worthy of a quick Friday afternoon mention.
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