Salon on SA/LJ merger
Salon has a piece by Danah Boyd on the SA/LJ merger - the first article (as opposed to announcement) that I’ve seen by a non-blog publisher. Salon is not exactly MSM, but it’s as close as it appears this story is going to get.
Rather than utilizing the long lead time between the announcement and the article to do some research, maybe even interview a few of the affected parties, Instead, Boyd simply re-wrote her initial blog post. I didn’t agree with her then, and given the distance and (squandered) opportunity to revise, I agree with her even less now. Coming in the form of paid journalism, her praise of LJ and its subcultures (which she dwells on for the entire article) seems patronizing. There’s no indication that she bothered to read any of the official news releases or Brad or Mena’s posts. Her one quote is from Mena, which shows that SA may be less of a threat than Boyd projects, but she chooses not to acknowledge that and quick returns to hand-wringing.
Boyd disappoints me: given the chance to appear in a mainstream-ish publication, she gave up all pretense of journalist (ie, balanced reporting, researching, etc.) in favor of ranting. Even as an opinion piece (which Salon does not categorize it as), it fails, because the passion and immediacy of the initial post are no longer present in its new form. Interestingly, for all her LJ-love, Boyd never once mentions her own LJ, if she has one. (If not, maybe she should leave the fretting to those who do.) It’s the fact that she walked this personal vs. journalistic line, rather than picking a side and digging in, that makes the article ring so false to me. (Also, what’s with the lowercase name? That seems both pretentious and emo simultaneously. I’m surprised Salon let that land on their homepage.)
End result? I’m a bit unhappy with both Boyd and Salon. I haven’t seen anything resembling balanced reporting on this story yet, and I was hoping for that when I clicked into this story. I suppose it’s neither of their mandates to provide me with this, but all the same I was left feeling cold.
Jan 12th 2005
This piece was most definitely an opinion piece, not a news piece. I’m sorry if you thought otherwise.
And i most certainly did read Mena and Brad’s posts. The goal of that essay was to address how the sale affects a particular group of people - it is not meant to broadly discuss the sale. I’m sorry that you’re feeling cold about a lack of news publishing about the sale.
Jan 12th 2005
I assumed it was an opinion piece, though it was a bad editorial decision for Salon to keep it out of their aptly named “Opinion” section. Not your doing, I know. And on the focus of the piece, well, I think you could have offered a better argument if you countered some of the rebuttals which popped up in Brad and Mena’s posts between when you first posted and when it appeared on Salon. But perhaps you weren’t given the opportunity, or thought it would distract from your point. Though I disagreed with your blog post, I did see it as the most thoughtful examination of all the people who were screaming bloody murder in the blogosphere. It was largely the lack of a response to the official releases that weakened your argument in my eyes.
And, yes, I still find it ridiculous that the MSM has paid so little attention to this merger. But perhaps us bloggers are being just a wee bit self-centered. When so much else of importance is going on, a merger of two mid-size tech companies does not a front page story make.
Jan 12th 2005
I don’t think that MSM is going to pay attention to it because it doesn’t mean a whole lot other than what they have covered - condensation means a non-MS/Google company has more blogs than MS/Google. ::shrug:: Not a big deal until something changes.
That said, i totally respect that you felt my lack of focus on the merger weakened my argument. I feel like much of what i said could’ve stood without the merger and that the merger played little role in my concerns except as a very clear kick in the butt that we need to remember why LJ is so important for a particular group.