Shafer Ponders Blog Hype

Jack Shafer, editor at large for Slate, ponders who smites whom in an old/new media confrontation -- and if there is any actual smiting or even a shootout. Me, I'm wondering if the topic still has relevance. I mean, hasn't the blush faded from this kind of story by now? I'm blogging it because there are links to several blogs that might be worth checking out. :)

Blog Overkill The danger of hyping a good thing into the ground. By Jack Shafer Posted Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2005, at 5:48 PM PT

...the alleged divide between the old media and this new whippersnapper media of blogs has never seemed real to me. With the exception of the "metro" section reporter covering a 12-car pile-up on the freeway, I think most practicing journalists today are as Webby as any blogger you care to name....

...The premature triumphalism of some bloggers indicates that they haven't paid attention to how Webified journalists have become. They also ignore media history. New media technologies almost never replace old media technologies, they merely force old technologies to adapt and find new ways to connect with their audiences. Radio killed the "special edition," but newspapers survived. When television dethroned radio as the hearthside infobox and cratered the Hollywood box office, radio became a mobile medium, and Hollywood devoted itself to spectaculars that the tiny TV set couldn't adequately display. The competitive spiral has continued, with cable TV, VCRs and DVDs, satellite TV and radio broadcasters, and now Internet broadcasters entering the fray. The only extinct mass medium that I can think of is the movie house newsreel.

Full column: http://slate.msn.com/id/2112621/