While my guitar shaped like Thomas Paine gently weeps.

This post is a little late, and gets the dreaded Silica Gel label, but Stephen A. Smith's fulminations against bloggers represent some of the same stuff we've seen from Batali, et al in re food bloggers, cooked down to a rock you can smoke:

"And when you look at the internet business, what’s dangerous about it is that people who are clearly unqualified get to disseminate their piece to the masses. I respect the journalism industry, and the fact of the matter is ...someone with no training should not be allowed to have any kind of format whatsoever to disseminate to the masses to the level which they can. They are not trained."

Yes, it is alarming that Mr. Smith seems shaky on the meaning of the word "format," but more alarming that a putative journalist who reaches millions of homes every day seems to be operating with a guild mentality. Imagine how different (and better!) the history of our species would be if only people had been properly trained had access to mass media.  Milton's just an old blind pain in the ass, and Tom Paine's that guy at your local who bumps into you, spills your beer,  and spends the whole night apologizing to you. Woodward and Bernstein are bumping rails in an Alexandria motel, etcetera, etcetera. Hell, in Stephen A. Smith's world, Martin Luther would have had to be thesis-nailing certified before he posted his stuff up.

The point, which is evidently bears repeating, is that access to the medium does not create an audience. An easy way to establish that is to click on the "next blog" link on a Blogspot blog. For every blog that people read, there are hundreds that are ignored by a number that asymptotically approaches everyone. A blog only has an audience if people find it and read it. There are ways to generate that audience, but they involve, primarily, having content that people want to read. If you are credible, you are credible, if you ain't, you ain't, and it does not matter what the medium is. Like Marshall McLuhan said, don't hate the player, hate the game.

And speaking of the title, in case you missed it, it's the 1988 NBA Eastern Finals, and Prince is Dominique Wilkins, and Larry Bird:

Comments

[Marco]

You nailed it on creating an audience and being properly trained in order to have access to media. Prince blooows everybody away. They are dumbfounded, as I was when I first saw it.