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yellow.pngIn 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.