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January 20, 2006
Random News About Blogs
The NYT wrote an article about WaPo supposedly closing a blog.
Headline: "Paper Decides to Close Blog, Citing Vitriol,"
Byline: Katharine Seelye
First Sentence: "The Washington Post shut one of its blogs yesterday, saying it had drawn too many personal attacks, profanity and hate mail directed at the paper's ombudsman."
I was intrigued by the article, since it seems strange to shutter a blog because of comments. Turns out, WaPo didn't shutter the blog, it simply turned off the comment section. I think the blog originally allowed candid volleys between editors and readers. But no matter active the comment section is, simply turning it off is not shutting down a blog. Perhaps the NYT chose its terminology from the WaPo blog entry announcing the end of comments: "As of 4:15 p.m. ET today, we have shut off comments on this blog indefinitely." Still, the NYT article was bad form and showed a lack of understanding of the media it is covering.
In other blog news, Seed Media is publishing a set of science blogs and tryin to get high end advertisers at scienceblogs.com The ad angle of this is discussed by Stuart Elliot in the NYT. Gotta say, the beta version is uninteresting. Perhaps the actual blogs are interesting but you'd think their main site would pull you in instead of repelling you.
Posted by cj at January 20, 2006 07:09 AM