The largest of stumbling blocks—well, more like walls—lain in the blogger's path to journalistic credibility has been…journalistic credibility. That concern alone has been the traditional (read: now ye olde school) journalist's trumping objection, a turned up nose progressively shrinking and less relevant. Until today, April Fools Day.
You'll have to be patient on this scenic journey with me. We're headed somewhere, I promise. Whether it's some place cool remains to be seen.The high-minded academics out there, who have time to burn on deep thought, are already concerned about such lofty concepts like Google-ized reality—in brief, that Google's dominance in the editorialized structuring of information leads to the more 18th Century idea that when people are presented with the same facts (or assumed facts) they will collectively reach the same conclusion—and even that Google's continually updated time stamp is altering the nature of what this guy says, or page of spoofs, or the second-page admission that it was all just a gag. Down the page was also Sir Richard Branson and the Billionaire Boys Club announcing a joint venture between Google and Virgin: to establish my boss relays the amens to his Twittered* complaint:
"There are too many April Fools news articles in the tech news world today. It makes the online news industry look a bit amateurish."
Assuming every Twitter person is who they appear, Peter Leshaw Twitters back how he agrees, and Paula Hawk notes, "It does make for a difficult day not knowing what to believe."
So now we're back to credibility, and why the mainstream, traditional media is reluctant to take this online revolution seriously, even as print bleeds subscribers and advertisers.
Or how about this instead of that tired old argument: Tell me again how this medium, arguably the most important and powerful invention since the printing press, will give credence and power to the voices of the small, the marginalized, the previously barred from entry—all that wonderful, lofty and possible rhetoric—when the same old powerbrokers will be the only ones believed?
"Amateurish" isn't the word. "Childish" is better. It implies innocent playfulness, which is the driving force behind April Fools Day, and it implies perhaps unintended consequences for which it is difficult to lay blame, and for which readily should be forgiven. But when I open up Digg.com on or around April 1st, I want to believe a headline like "Good sexual intercourse last minutes, not hours"** and "Science: monkeys were the first doctors."
Original Blogger Dave Winer:"What we used to call blogging is now just bullshit about recycled bullshit about recycled bullshit and on and on. Who bit who in the ass, never mind anything new or hard to comprehend, cause that's not what we do. We aggregate eyeballs and clickthroughs and CPMs and god knows what else."
Aye, the truth comes out at last. Happy April Fools Day.
*If you believe that, I've got some business opportunities I'd like to speak with you about. A "good" journalist, by the way, might be synonymous with "seasoned" journalist. In a perfect world, experience trains the nose to more acutely smell a rat. Necessary skepticism is, after all, born with a red face. Give me a minute and I'll find another metaphor. *Yes, plenty of room for a cheap shot, a low blow, which I am currently restraining my fingers from producing just for meanness, which is never a good reason to do anything…discipline, Jason. I'm waiting for my entertainment writing gig from E! Network. Clearly, I have the gift for pithy puns. I've also been working on how to pretend what minor celebrities have for lunch is newsworthy, and how to be a sell-out rock star (I'm looking at you, Mark McGrath.) *I'm boycotting the vulgar "tweet" verb. I do not tweet. Neither should you. Not that twittering is much better. **Oh never mind. I'm sure you get it.
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