LA Times columnist: Blogging sucks

by Actual News Geezer | January 19, 2007 at 01:00 pm

181 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

Joel Stein is "is desperate for attention," his official biography says at the LA Times. Maybe that explains why he went off the deep end in his column today complaining that his editors are a bunch of weiners, terrified of the Internet, and he's had it with interactivity. To his readers who might want to respond with an email, or engage in a "conversation", Stein has this to say: don't bother.

Here's what my Internet-fearing editors have failed to understand: I don't want to talk to you; I want to talk at you. A column is not my attempt to engage in a conversation with you. I have more than enough people to converse with. And I don't listen to them either. That sound on the phone, Mom, is me typing.

Some newspapers even list the phone numbers of their reporters at the end of their articles. That's a smart use of their employees' time. Why not just save a step and have them set up a folding table at a senior citizen center with a sign asking for complaints?

He goes on:

Not everything should be interactive. A piece of work that stands on its own, without explanation or defense, takes on its own power. If Martin Luther put his 95 Theses on the wall and then all the townsfolk sent him their comments, and he had to write back to all of them and clarify what he meant, some of the theses would have gotten all watered down and there never would have been a Diet of Worms. And then, for the rest of history, elementary school students learning about the Reformation would have nothing to make fun of. You can see how dangerous this all is.