Larvatus Prodeo

There was an interesting discussion on this post on the whole “what is different about blogs and MSM “blogs” theme” with George Megalogenis recently. I generally agree with those who argued that whatever takes place on the bulletin boards of the News Limited and Fairfax online empires, it ain’t blogging. Even the reference to commenters as “bloggers” is jarring to anyone who was actually around the blogosphere before the media tried to appropriate it. It’s the lingo, dude! That’s just a small sign of something different going on, but a significant one. Another is evident from Megalogenis’ blog today.

My concern is not what you argue but how you go about it.

My mind is open on pretty much every issue. It’s what journalists do for a living: keep their minds open in the hope that they catch the next new idea out there.

Sadly, what a significant minority of my bloggers do is begin their posts with an assumption that everyone who disagrees with them is a “moron”.

Here’s why those posts grate: My job as a journalist is to assume that the person who disagrees with me doesn’t know what I know. To increase the sum of their knowledge, I can only tell them what I know on their terms, in their language. Which must begin with an assumption that I am not better than my reader.

Continue reading ‘The mote in your own eye: civility, community and the MSM online’