Scripting News: If I had a hammer

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

If I had a hammer

Ian Betteridge thinks my view of journalism is "frankly, nonsense," comparing journalism to carpentry. "This is as silly as saying that carpenters are middlemen for wood merchants," he says.

Interesting point, but in carpentry the raw materials are dead things -- wood, nails, screws. In journalism the raw material are sources, living people, who can, if they want go direct, if they get tired of being misquoted, or if no reporter ever asks what they think, or if when asked, they don't understand. That's the sense in which reporters are intermediaries.

I suggest a visit inside the sausage factory. Ask a reporter what dumbing down means, and how they feel about the headlines that have appeared over their writing.

Charles Hope: "Who can believe any breathless hagiography about journalists?"

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:00:36 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

Feb Apr