Scripting News: Chickenshit?

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

Chickenshit?

I got a call from Mary Trigiani on Wednesday night. A regular reader of this blog, Silicon Valley communication consultant, cookbook author, sister of a famous author, and friend.

She had been at a conference on advertising in the new era, a panel discussion that included AlwaysOn publisher Tony Perkins and Kourosh Karimkhany from Wired Digital. The panel turned to the discussion that was brewing in our corner of the blogosphere about the role of sources and our relationship to reporters.

Based on Mary's account I expressed optimism for how Wired was rising to the occasion. And it totally didn't surprise me that Perkins took a couple of personal and cheap shots at Calacanis and myself.

One more loose-end to take care of...

Last night, I said I might offer the email I sent to the Wired reporter, Fred Vogelstein, on April 24. The text follows.

"I don't think you would have gotten anytihng from a phone talk with me or Calacanis. We do all our business via email, and in blog posts, and in comments.

"Go read Mike's Crunchnotes post. You'll see his view of the world. See my response, and that's how I push back against his view.

"The fact that all this exploded into Techmeme today made your story. Start reading, and post questions in the comments on all the blog posts that puzzle you. Make sure they know you're from Wired.

"If you're creative you'll get a wonderful story.

"Think of yourself as an American in Iraq."

In other words, do research, the story is on the web, not the telephone.

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:00:43 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.

Mar May