Recently I wrote a post about the media and racing, making a case that the media is too close to the business to be critical and give it the push it needs often times. One of the respondents wrote a rebuttal that was quite good and made me think. However, one part I do disagree with:
Traditional journalism has also been replaced by bloggers or, as one person now calls them, sloggers. In the absence of a name or a face, they are people who sit by computers and criticize.
There are some sharp people out there, who are accountable (their posts are archived) and that argue, debate and put forth alternative points of view with passion and a point. Whether you are heaping praise or being critical, you have to do so with a point. It does not matter if you have a journalism degree or not, and it certainly does not matter if your name is Bill, or Sue or Chalk Eating Weasel.
For example, one new blogger wrote a response to Ray Paulick's comment below where Ray stated he was “guilty as charged for siding with horsemen” in many of his opines. "Mr. Paulick's claim that not siding with the horsemen would leave the sport without horses is an oversimplification to the point where it becomes an insult to the reader’s intelligence", he says, among other things. We very rarely read such politically incorrect opinions in the regular press and hey, maybe it is link bait, but it is good link bait. What he says is essentially correct, or at the very least debatable, no matter how much we as insiders don't want to hear it. You would never read this opinion in the mainstream press in this sport.
He is a man with an opinion, who backs it up with some fact and some passion. If he is a 'slogger' pass me more slog please.
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4 comments:
Right on PTP! Your fellow slogger.
Thanks, my ears are still burning. Except of course for the link bait accusation, which is somewhat justified, although the text did originally start out as a response and just ended up a little bit too off-topic and too long to post it as a comment.
I left the link bait thing up to interpretation. It is what us sloggers do :)
I actually helped inspire the term slog.
Here is what someone (who I happen to know) defined it in the urban dictionary:
5. Slog
This is a hybrid of slag and blog and incorporates the idea of someone who slags someone or something in a blog.
In his latest item, blogger John Smith slogs the X company and its president for blatantly making a conditional land deal with the Y company and then hiring consultants. It is an obvious slog by Smith, who doesn't care if he knows all the facts. In his opinion, he's a blogger and isn't bound by the same moral and ethical guidelines and terms as traditional media, particularly if he is not identified in his blog site.
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I guess "journalists" need to try to differentiate themselves from us sloggers.
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