I have just discovered that I am a fool.
Goodness.
This is the stated opinion of one Joseph Rago, who writes a column for the Wall Street Journal.
Bloggers and Blog World were the topic of today’s column, and young Joey apparently holds blogs — and their readers — somewhat in contempt.
I believe the actual quote is:
“The Blog Mob
Written by fools to be read by imbeciles”
I would link to the actual article, but I have come to the conclusion that — since I blog and therefore am a fool — that maybe the Wall Street Journal is a little too high-falutin’ for this poor fool. Thus, no more links and no more subscription.
I find it somewhat incongruous for a professed journalist to be throwing around the title of ‘fool’ so carelessly. There are an estimated fifty million blogs throughout the World Wide Web.
50,000,000 individual sites showing prose, pieces, sonnets, exposes, poetry, string-of-consciousness rants, stories and even some fairly respectable journalism.
Are some blogs foolish? Some people may find certain subjects foolish, while others find the same subject endlessly fascinating — who is to define what exactly a ‘fool’ is?
Yet, here is a journalist, happily tarring all fifty million blogs as the work of ‘fools’.
It must be nice to be so certain of a thing, to be so convinced that fifty million things you’ve not read yet — and shall never read — are ‘foolish’.
All fifty million, hmm?
Goodness.
Now, I don’t claim to be an expert — indeed, according to Mr. Rago I am naught but a fool — but as I read the piece authored by Joey Rago, I am struck by a mental image of the Main Stream Media playing the part of Rome, while the Visigoth bloggers happily scale the city walls.
Like Rome, Joseph Rago and the rest of the Main Stream Media are convinced that non-journalist Visigoth types should remember the glory days of years past — and ignore the current incarnation, which, more often than not, involves partisanship, irrelevance, lies, scandal and corruption.
We should, they pontificate, Trust The Media — because everyone knows that the media back in the Golden Age was noble, pure of heart and had only our Best Interests At Heart.
Mr. Rabo reminds me of a Roman noble, standing in the middle of a sacked and flaming Rome, shouting that the Visigoths are fools and imbeciles for even daring to challenge Rome — while those very same Visigoth bloggers run past him carrying off the household silver and his daughters.
*sigh*
Oh, well. It’s fun to watch.
LawDog