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"Professional" Journalist Spews Hateful Attack on Blogosphere

In a hateful piece of yellow journalism South African Sunday Times columnist David Bullard skewers bloggers as "people who wouldn’t stand a hope in hell of getting a job in journalism."

Most blog sites, he rages, "are the air guitars of journalism....It’s even sadder when someone reads them."

Bullard's real clincher is where he says bloggers: “... are the sort of wackos who gun down their fellow students at university.” Excuse me, but what's your source Mr. B?

Hello dear incredibly angry south african dead tree journalist:
- Many professional journalists blog
- There are many blogs (including this one) that have more uniques a week than 999 out of 1,000 print newspapers. Blogs including Slashdot, BoingBoing, The Huffington Post, Engadget and Perez Hilton that have more blogs linking to them than many newspapers have readers.
- Blogs
- help increase press mentions (assuming those are valuable) :>)
- build word of mouth buzz, both positive and negative
- are a kind of a free focus group that let companies know where they stand
- create interactive communities of people who share opinions
- increasingly break news before mainstream media
- can increase search engine ranking
- allow companies to bypass traditional journalists and tell their side of a story directly to the public
- are great for crowd sourcing
- can provide early warning signs of problems a company needs to address

Eric Berlin calls Bullard's column "a hateful, condescending piece" and suggests Bullard turn on his brain before attacking the blogosphere.

Vinny Lingham calls Bullard

a "fool with no understanding of new media and it’s impact on society....This is exactly the mentality that is leading to the decline of offline print as a source of information, because the people entrenched in the offline world are so resistant to change, they cannot keep up with the times."

Vincent Maher calls the column "a dazzling display of arrogance."

Says Pierre deVos, "Bullard seems to be rather kind, actually." But then he notes:

[Bullard] claims that the content in the Sunday Times is of a certain quality because it has been through editing processes. But one only has to skim that newspapers pages to be made aware of the sorry state of journalism in South Africa. Sometimes I wonder whether those people get paid to write so badly about such brain curdling boring issues. The New York Times it ain’t."

Ironically, on the same day, The Times also published "Business Missing Out on Blogging," which notes:

"Blogs tend to be rich in fresh information and relevant news. More importantly, this information can be commented on by the people who visit the blog site. So it is not just a flat brochure, like a website..."

Put that in your pipe with whatever else you're smoking Mr. Bullard.

Categories: Blog Bashing

BL Ochman | May 7 07 2:13 | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Oy, how come I don't get a link?? LOL

Posted by: Vincent Maher at May 7, 2007 3:25 PM

Vincent - there IS a link to you!

Posted by: B.L. Ochman at May 7, 2007 3:58 PM

Man O man! Methinks WAY too may people were suckered into snapping at David Bullard's luminescent lure. And they've landed up looking and sounding like right royal asses in the process. Tweakin' the pussycat's tail, it's called! ;-)

On a more serious note, many anal print journos and book publishers alike, are aghast that we philistines who didn't graduate from the former 'Argus school of journalism', enjoy an unfettered 'voice'. Without the predations of a nit-picky sub-editor into the bargain! Tough on them and their unremittingly boring, self-indulgent and narcissistic columns! Blah.

Posted by: Clive Simpkins at May 8, 2007 12:32 PM

I foresaw that he would soon be playing an air-keyboard, and was right when he launched his own blog later that day. Though, I admit, it seems he hasn't quite worked out Wordpress yet, and I am sure that someone else posted for him.

Air-typewriter?

Posted by: Rouvanne at May 8, 2007 7:19 PM

Let's assume it is true that bloggers don't stand a chance in hell of getting a job in journalism. Does that matter?

I don't write with the hope that I'll get a job at DMNews, my industry's site for journalism. I doubt you write for those reasons, either.

As for the other comments, if that represents journalism, I don't want to have anything to do with journalism.

Posted by: Kevin Hillstrom at May 9, 2007 1:16 AM

One irony is that, without the blogosphere, no one outside of South Africa would ever have heard Mr. Bullard. Perhaps he was indeed just "tweaking the tail" of blogger's the world-round in order to promote himself.

Posted by: Matt Grant at May 9, 2007 11:09 AM

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About BL Ochman

Blogger, social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and sought-after corporate speaker B.L. Ochman heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. She also publishes the Ethics Crisis blog for SRF Global Translations

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