Not all journalists learn from bloggers. My cranky rant and op-ed went unnoticed by the NYTimes, who proceeded to run an article entitled Wry Hoaxes Enliven the World of Web Diarists that talks about “Web logs.”

I should note that i’m by no means upset with the authors of either NYTimes articles, as i’m fully aware that they are at the whim of their editorial stuff. Unlike Xeni, i don’t have a c’est la vie attitude about it. [Update: Xeni does not have this attitude and often stops working with editors who pull this shit. Apologies.]

One way of asserting power and marginalizing people is to own the language by reframing the terms of the oppressed into the terms of the privileged, thereby degrading the original terminology (think ‘liberal’). This is why one of the most powerful tactics of oppressed people is to reclaim their terminology, to own it as empowering (think ‘queer’). The US civil rights battles were ripe with oppressive uses and reclaiming of black terminology (think ‘nigger’).

One of the rules of anthropology is to always use the terms of the people. By reframing a people’s language into hegemonic terminology, the writer oppresses the people, owns the people. It is not only a lack of respect, but an attempt to assert authority and power.

This doesn’t just apply to anthropology. I continue to be cranky with the NYTimes.

The New Blogocracy is a Salon op-ed that i wrote based on the blog entry Demeaning Bloggers. I tried to go deeper into my feelings about pitting journalists against bloggers. I think that it’s a fun piece.

If you don’t have a Salon account, click the Free Day Pass. NARAL is definitely an organization worth supporting.

Oh, and i’ve also decided that i *lurve* having an editor, particularly one as constructive as Andrew Leonard.

Blogging has terrified mainstream media for a while now. Journalists want to know if blogs are going to degrade their profession, open up new possibilities or otherwise challenge their authority. This also means that whenever the press writes about blogs, one must critically consider what biases are embedded in their reporting. This morning, the NYTimes took their bias to the headlines:

As i’ve written before, blogging is rhetorically situated between journalism and diarying. Most often, people label blogging as one or the other in order to degrade it. The NYTimes pulled this act today because they have a professional interest in portraying convention bloggers as “low-brow” and unworthy of reading, while the NYTimes will present the real “high-brow” convention story. By framing bloggers as diarists, the NYTimes is demanding that the reader see blogs as petty, childish and self-absorbed. They further perpetuate this view by pasting a picture of a youth on the front of the article to suggest that bloggers are all inexperienced and naive, further implying that their reports will not have the value of the more “adult” perspective of “real” journalists.

The entire spin of the article focuses on how bloggers are like children in a candy store – naive, inexperienced and overwhelmed by what is now available to them. The article focuses on the minutia of blogging, emphasizing that bloggers won’t really cover the real issues, but provide the “low-brow” gossip. (I somehow suspect that the NYTimes is far more likely to cover what various attendees are wearing than the bloggers.) The article does proceed to share its stance on bloggers through the voice of one subject: “I think that bloggers have put the issue of professionalism under attack.” (Not Jason Blair?)

I am horrified by this article. Not only does the NYTimes reveal their naivete about blogging, but they use their lack of clarity to demean a practice that they perceive as threatening. No wonder their professionalism is under attack.

[Also posted at M2M.]