Does Bakersfield Californian take jab at ‘uncivil’ N.L. and bloggers everywhere? - By N.L. Belardes

I was laughing this morning when I saw the Californian seemed to have sent me a subliminal message regarding my blog and my criticism of Bakersfield Bob. Or was this a message meant for an audience much larger than me? Their message was in the form of a blog of their own that blogged in a manner meant to be satirical of an article by Kathleen Parker of the Orlando Sentinel, and purposely—as they think bloggers do—to stir up trouble and perhaps, though I cannot prove, to jab at me a little.

And how would I know this? The title of their blog entry is “Bloggers, are you stupid and uncivil?” Swenson’s blog article states, “Is she talking about East Coast bloggers? Or is she talking about any of us? So what do you think you are—stupid? Uncivil? Attracted to flies?”

As many of you know, I was called an uncivil bully by Davin McHenry of the Bakersfield Californian. I have been poking fun and writing about the Californian in opinion-filled blogs that the Californian just doesn’t like very much. So in their title it seems as if they are calling me stupid and then appear to ask the question, “Is N.L. uncivil too?”

Or maybe they aren’t talking to me. Maybe they are they just reflecting an elitist media attitude already out there in the consciousness of the global journalistic brotherhood: demonizing bloggers because of an us vs. them mentality. So maybe this is just the way the elitist media speaks to all bloggers.

I find Parker completely overlooking the media’s pitfalls and greedy story-grabbing. She writes:

…no industry agonizes more about how to improve its product, police its own members, and better serve its communities. Newspapers are filled with carpal-tunneled wretches, overworked and underpaid, who suffer near-pathological allegiance to getting it right.

I don’t think so. The recent miner debacle saw newspaper trying to beat newspaper trying to beat television media-storm in an all-out battle over ratings and selling papers that had a snowball effect that literally nailed the media to the cross for not getting the so-called ‘miracle story’ right. Then the media went on to blame rescuers for spreading such gossip when the media only had itself to blame for not checking facts and hounding Mining company officials for details… Do you think journalists in Timbuktu cared if they got their version of the miner story right? No, I don’t think most of the global media checked the facts. They reported fast and furious with the major risk of being… dare I say it… wrong.

Why would I suggest the Californian was talking to me? Although Parker hints at uncivil behavior from bloggers, she doesn’t use the word ‘uncivil’. McHenry did. But enough of my being a barbarian.

Parker also writes:

Schadenfreude—pleasure in others' misfortunes—has become the new barbarity on an island called Blog. When someone trips, whether Dan Rather or Eason Jordan or Judith Miller, bloggers are the bloodthirsty masses slavering for a public flogging. Incivility is their weapon and humanity their victim.

Talk about hogwash. Bloggers are no more guilty of writing about pitfalls than Parker’s own paper, the Orlando Sentinel. Isn’t writing about humanity's pitfalls what the media does, discussing negative news to attract attention to their papers/TV shows/Radioshows? Catastrophe breeds sales. Don’t you all remember the 9-11 spreads? And why wouldn’t I write about Bakersfield Bob? Should citizen journalists adhere to the journalistic brotherhood when they are so frowned upon? Bakersfield Bob was a liar, plain and simple. My criticism had its merits, or the community would not have backed me. I see no need to protect the media just because the media thinks I need them to help sell books.

I wrote in my year in review:

Sure bloggers are a new form of media. They’re daring, they’re fast on the move, they’re citizen journalists, grassroots writers with a mission; they’re inaccurate at times and right on the money at other moments. Sure, folks say newspapers are dying, but they also say Bakersfield has one of the last privately owned papers in the country. So what? I don’t care. The fact of the matter is the local paper doesn’t know what to do with me other than ignore me as best they can.

So maybe the Bakersfield, Californian is still ignoring me in particular. But they’re not ignoring bloggers, who they are hinting at as 'uncivil' as a whole and barbarians banging on the Great Wall of the pretentious civilized big media. Sure, why not paint bloggers as the devil? It’s easy for both sides to demonize each other. The media, they protect their own, I’ll grant them that. They will frown on any writer who isn’t one of their brotherhood and who criticizes.

Uncivil, my hiney. There's a difference between criticism and incivility.

I’ll be in William Golding’s book any day, a loud child perhaps fighting for what’s right on an anarchic island of fears, wandering in a book that mimics adulthood. Has the media forgotten that in such a book a blogger may be the child, but the big media may be no more than the eyes staring at the plane wreck hidden half under a murky island sea?

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Monday, January 09, 2006. You can leave your response.