Will Blog for Food…

 In Social Media

Typewriter Robot by Jeremy Mayer

I’ve been asked to write a blog post.

A blog? Me? But I get PAID to write and to whip other people’s meandering brain-farts into glorious prose! Well, that is, I did until two weeks ago, when I was laid off from my job as editor at a book publisher. You know, moldy old books. Like, paper and ink and four-color printing and stuff.

I’ve been in print publishing for nearly 20 years, writing for and editing magazines and books on everything from international business news to music to architecture. Why should I stoop to a medium that’s attainable to any idiot with an iBook? I mean (to paraphrase the old joke about awards), blogs are like hemorrhoids: sooner or later, every asshole gets one.

The truth is, publishing now really is for everyone, from bloggers to tweeters to the right-place-at-the-right-time bystander who manages to capture breaking news with a cellphone camera.

This may be bad news for the professionals, that endlessly growing pool of talented, out-of-work journalists who are duking it out for the few available jobs at established publications. For everyone else, though, it means access to a wealth of opinions, points of view, and, yes, insane ramblings, which may inform, infuriate, call to act, or simply amuse.

The Web, with its accessibility and immediacy, lends itself intrinsically to writing of an egocentric nature. My own writings have never been personal; my professional duties have always been as a reporter or as an editor of other people’s work. I find it incredibly embarrassing to talk about myself; can’t we discuss that fascinating individual over there?

But clearly I need to get with the program. My profession has changed; hell, even the language we use to discuss it has changed. While I won’t stop looking for a job at a “legitimate” media outlet, in the meantime, I will begrudgingly learn to write snappy, snarky, first-person Web-speak, and to embrace the blogs and Twitters and Diggs and Wikis, and, yeah, I still don’t know what Foursquare is.

So, here’s my blog entry. Maybe some people will happen upon it. But for now, until I get used to the idea, one thing you can count on is that I won’t be posting a link for all of my friends on Facebook. Just give me a few weeks.

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Showing 4 comments
  • doctor skimina

    Really like your style. Will you blog for mannah?

  • doctor skimina

    I like your style. Will you blog for mannah?

  • larry

    as someone who wrote for two different newspapers and published/edited a monthly newsletter years ago (and who detests the word blog) when i post on-line i refer to the posts as articles, just like i did back in the 1990’s before the word blog ord bloggers.

    it may be semantics but to me the word “blogger” bring up images of someone sharing their daily diary and willing to do it forever never getting paid.

    i never ask people to check out my blog, i ask them to read the article i just posted just as i would ask if they had read my article in the newspaper.

  • Amanda

    As long as you continue to use proper grammar and punctuation I think you are WAY ahead of the curve! Cheers to you for having an intelligent and literate mental climate before attacking a keyboard with self important and entitled “truths” that simply must be shared with the internet pedestrians. People need to learn to FILTER!

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