Gabe Bradley on Blogs
Gabe Bradley has yet another silly piece in today’s ODE. Behold the Kinsleyesque hubris:
When I write something, I want as many people as possible to read it and hopefully respond. For instance, I wouldnt continue to write this weekly column if the Emerald didnt have a wide enough audience to keep a nearly constant stream of hate mail flowing through my inbox.
Perhaps thats why I dont get the appeal of blogs; theyre not something new to me. Publishing my random thoughts for public consumption is my job, the daily grind, so to speak. There are some differences, of course. I dont get to write my own headlines; I have to write on a certain time frame and follow certain guidelines; I have to ask permission in order to use profanity (shit, piss, damn); also, I have to let other people cut up my words before they see the light of day. In exchange for those restrictions, however, I have access to a much larger audience than is available to the average blogger.
The beauty of blogging is that readers themselves (and not a few liberal newspaper editors) decide which material gets trafficked. Before, opinions were to be found amongst friends and in newspapers, both of which are rather select groups. Now the entire world has the potential of reading an individual’s opinions, well-reasoned and researched or not. Readers are no longer limited to Jenny McBride’s ramblings, your silly pap, or Ailee Slater’s stoned gibberish.
