, www.JonesToTheGrindstone [1]
I couldn’t resist using the popular Internet abbreviation, “WTF,” to play-up a question with a complex answer: WTF is blogging? Yes, “what the flip” (HA!) is blogging?
the good with the bad
Well, here is Dictionary.com’s definition, “To write entries in, add material to, or maintain a weblog.” And a weblog is listed as, “A website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings.” In general, it seems like Dictionary.com doesn’t have a complete explanation for the meaning of blogging. It is uncertain that anyone has the complete answer, but there are two agreed upon markers: words and posting online.
But, is blogging journalism? To find out what disease a patient does have, doctors test for what diseases a patient doesn’t have—to cross it off the list of possibilities. In the same vein, is blogging not journalism? Answers.com states that journalism is, “The style of writing characteristic of material in newspapers and magazines, consisting of direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation.” As long as a blog follows the same rules as traditional journalism, like fact-checking and truthful research, blogging can be journalism. But, no, not all blogs are journalistic. However, affiliated blogs, like Geoff Edgers’s “The Exhibitionist” at Boston.com, typically are regarded as journalism. But, Edgers has a blog—just ask him.
An example of non-journalistic blogging is using a blog as a personal essay. Photographer, Phillip Toledano operates a blog about his aging father’s life without short-term memory, “Days with My Father [2].” Toledano uses brilliant photography paired with words describing brief, impacting moments in his father’s current state. Toledano may be expressing facts, but he certainly does interpret and analyze them. This style of blogging is more of a literary and visual art form hybrid than a newspaper-style article. Phillip Lopate’s book, The Art of the Personal Essay, is an anthology of classic personal essays. If those published essays were posted online as blogs, they would not be viewed as journalism. But, they would still be blogs.
Personal essay blogs can be good and bad. The fact that anyone with Internet access can publish a blog for free allows for both types to exist. Good blogging means using established literary techniques to write the blogs, fiction and non-fiction. Constance Hale, author of Sin and Syntax, hails some of these techniques; for example, avoiding adverbs, using visual verbs, and utilizing specific nouns. Bad blogging would be an absence or overuse of the literary techniques. Knowing where to “draw the line” is a useful skill in blogging, as with writing. But, good or bad, they are still blogs.
The existence of blogs can be a haven for the curious reader who wants to hear many different voices on an incredible array of topics. Unlike at a traditional publishing house, there are no filters in place. This leaves the doors wide open for the next E. B. White to get his start online. When in the past, perhaps the “Next White” could have erroneously received stacks of rejection letters and never had his writings published. With the Next White’s yang, there is also a ying. There are torturous examples of poorly written blogs online. (I’m sure you can already think of a few.) But, like a beautiful rainbow and a terrible thunderstorm, they both survive in this world.
Blogging fits right in to the scheme of literature and journalism before it. The literary arts have room for new styles and techniques, just like the fine arts. While some people prefer Impressionism, others prefer Romanticism or Cubism. While some people prefer Realism, some people prefer Gothic or “Blogging”—WTF?! Yes, I put Blogging in the same sentence as recognized literary periods. Blogging has left its mark on the literary world and will continue to evolve—no matter its definitions