More than a personal diary
Published by Yazad Jal January 19th, 2005 in Web World, MediaOk. This is a rant. I can be nice when I want to, but this time I want to vent some steam about last Sunday’s piece on blogging in the Indian Express.
The very first thing that hit me about Murali Menon is that he didn’t know anything whatsoever about blogs and worse he hadn’t even visited any. The lack of homework and the endless repetition of stereotypes irritated me. Come on, all you need to do is hit google. Search for blog, blogging, bloggers, top blogs, etc.
When requested for an interview I generally ask the reporter to email me a list of questions, and we can take it forward once he goes through my replies. This way if he’s going to quote me, he has the quotes exactly as I want them. The subtitle of the article claims Mr. Menon is an emailer, but I got no emails. He just called and asked if we could meet face to face. Well, what the hell, I met him for lunch. In hindsight I should have done what Rajesh Jain did.
Jain … prefers terse e-mail replies supplemented by appropriate links than one-on-one meetings
If we’d done some email, I could have answered 75% of what he asked – with links to blogs. And well I wouldn’t be misquoted. Two examples: I was asked why I blog instead of writing for a newspaper / magazine. My reply “I like being my own editor.” What came in the paper: [likes playing] ‘‘judgmental journalist without worrying about an editor’s scalpel’’. Wow! I like the phrase, but I definitely did not say it. And maybe the journalist at Express should be trying his hands at advertising, or fiction.
Menon also kept putting words in my mouth. One of his mantras was blogs as “alternative media.” I agree, but too much is made of it. But this is what he quoted me “Ultimately, and this is a romantic view, I want my blog and others like it to be a form of unbiased, alternative media.” Unbiased? Unbiased? My blog, as with every other medium of information, is biased. I did specifically talk about media biases as well. I have no idea where the unbiased popped in. It ruined my sarcasm – “romantic view” and all.
I wonder how my age or my looks matter to what I write. I found the “boyish looking 32 year old” very page 3 style. And it detracts from the substance. Nearly everybody who noticed the piece honed on to that statement (including Quizman). Menon actually calls me a day after the interview to ask my age. Methinks I should have said I’m 44.
The pic is another story. As the photographer (Manoj Patil, very nice guy, enjoyed chatting with him) could not accompany Menon, he came the next day. His brief was to shoot me casually typing something on a laptop. We spent an hour because I didn’t have a laptop. He shot various stock poses: in my office; on the street outside; even next to an old computer which was being sent for repair. The laptop mania stayed. Manoj even had the chutzpah to ask one of the computer shopkeepers whether he could borrow a laptop on display to shoot me on it outside on the street. I liked his initiative! But we got no for an answer. Ah well, I suppose Anand’s pic is what he was thinking about.
The article has a good choice of bloggers – Dina Mehta, Rohit Gupta of Desi Media Bitch, Riverbend (aka Baghdad Burning), SEA-EAT, Kitabkhana, Rajesh Jain, S Anand and one who I didn’t know – Monica Mody. But the over all feel was so “personal diary.” I know a lot of bloggers do confine themselves to writing about themselves, but the Express piece’s tone was quite “gosh – there are bloggers who do not do personal diary. What a revelation!” Yes, a personal touch does add value to an article, whether it be in a blog or a newspaper. But blogs=online personal diaries is like saying the Indian Express is Shekhar Gupta (and others) personal pamphlet.
Hardly any URL’s were mentioned. First rule of writing about the internet: if you’re going to mention a website, please do give the URL so those interested may visit.
No talk about group blogs although I’d talked a hell of a lot about the phenomenon. Desimediabitch, SEA-EAT are group blogs (so is mine to an extent). The dynamics of people coming together to blog which I find terribly exciting was glossed over. SEA-EAT (and Desi Media Bitch) are both great examples of how spontaneous order works.
Oh well, I can go on and on if I have to look at what he left out. Just one rant here. I told Menon that I admired S Anand because he’d handwired his blog. Menon asked what that meant and I told him. (Writing the code yourself instead of using a ready made program like Movable Type or Blogger). BTW, Aadisht has also handwired his blog.
One thing that got reinforced by this article is the old doubt I’ve had that feature writers give you only the very basic info. And this is a feature in a newspaper I admire. So be it. I’m tired of ranting. And today’s second op-ed in the Express redeems their reputation.
Of course it helps that the op-ed is written by one of the best new bloggers on the scene – Amit Varma. Varma looks at blogging as a
a powerful new form of journalism, that offers journalists the scope to do things that they cannot do in other media, and that draws discerning readers for just this reason.
His reasons why are succinct: flexibility of space, can contain more by linking to other sites, immediacy, a personal tone, and interactiveness. I’m also flattered that he mentions this blog and more importantly, gives the URL.
Varma misses an important point which I asked him in a personal email. Can earn a living from blogging alone? His answer: “Today, of course not. In five years’ time, undoubtedly yes. I think the top bloggers then can be big-paid stars then like those of televsion, like Leno and Larry King.”
He also promises to explain revenue streams in a future post. Something to look forward to.
22 Responses to “More than a personal diary”
- 1 Trackback on Jan 20th, 2005 at 10:29 am
Shaant Vats, Shaant.
Do you realise this is the longest piece you’ve ever written on your own?
The astonishing thing is, it’s taken 4 reporters to write this one piece. If, as you are saying, the reporter hadn’t visited blogs at all before meeting you, it is very very very…. astonishing.
The point about bloggers making a living off of it — it will probably a be a very small, select number of people.
And most of them will be paid by political interests, I suspect. Did you catch the recent mini-scandal involving Democratic bloggers who were on pres. Candidate Howard Dean’s payroll in the U.S.?
The only other bloggers who are currently paid regular salaries — as far as I know — are people like Wonkette, Gawker, and Fleshbot.
Some big-time bloggers do make a living out of Google Ads….
Can you think of other ways the financial model could work?
Blogging is a passion for most bloggers; journalism is a job for many journalists, with every article just part of the daily grind, something to be got over with. Chill, forget about it. I was also a bit taken aback that they changed my headline today to one that didn’t mean anything, and gave a strap that reinforced their view of blogs as a personal journal, though at least they didn’t mess with my text. (You can read my version with the original headline here). These things happen in the print media, don’t linger on it.
Yazad, journalists will always be journalists …. i suspect they’ve misquoted all of us in some way or the other … what i said about the future of blogging was articulated in such a garbled fashion in the piece. This is to be expected … old media has only just begun to recognise new media.
Whats heartening about this article and the one by Amit is the underlying implication that bloggers today are being seen as credible voices, as expert voices (in some cases), as important voices when compared to the older perception of diarists. Its going to take a lot more than a sprinkling of articles to actually showcase the value that we recognize intuitively today, which perhaps wasnt obvious to us too when we started blogging.
Lets talk some more about BlogWalk … we might even invite a journalist or two for it :):):)
This is why whenever I’m interviewed by a reporter, I try to get them to send me a list of questions, and email detailed “quote worthy” answers back. Whenever they scribble on their pads, stuff gets garbled. A personal example here.
I remember having to explain the details of XML for 45 minutes to a seriously clue-deprived business journalist from Business Today. She had no idea what it was, and kept asking me questions like “what percentage of your web pages are HTML and what percentage are XML?”
(I got one quote for my trouble.)
One useful thing I learnt from my time as a consultant (thanks to this book) was that most reporters already have an angle they’re chasing. If what you say doesn’t fit in at all with that, then you may find your words twisted or omitted to fit. It’s always a good idea to try figuring out the angle and sculpt your answers accordingly.
I usually meet journalists on the condition that I be sent a draft of the report — not just my quotes — before it is published. Once, I asked for all references to me to be removed because the ET (who else?) journalist has flipped the central thesis and used my comments entirely out of context.
Although this method does not make me popular with journalists, I find it better to be less quoted than to be misquoted.
MadMan: Hello!
To repeat an already made point, it is not just the journalists who don’t get it, a majority of the people who end up using tech from close quarters don’t get it too.
Why in good lord’s name were you trying to explain XML to the journo when even those who are creating the specs can’t do it well enough? Always remember to use watch words and key phrases like “underlying framework” and “application neutral.” They’d be happy and you’d never get misquoted ;)
Yazad: Been a while since the old days at ‘Shekhar Gupta’s personal pamphlet,’ but I will give it a shot.
First up, Indian media, traditional or online, is unbelievably ignorant about technology, the net or anything related to it. Neither the top bosses nor the minions have any clue about what is happening on the net and as a result facts are hard to find in the stories they do, while mistakes are aplenty. Even when that is the case, you can’t really blame a reporter for chasing down an angle with a story; every reporter does that. The shorter version of the story is that the media just does not ‘get it’.
The issue with printing URLs in articles is that there are just no style sheet specifications in most publications on how to use them and it does not help things when the URL break or hang, especially with the amount of ‘kerning magic’ that is used to make the copy fit the given space.
You really can’t hold it against the chap that he did not understand “handwiring”. I still remember the “what the fuck is that?” mail I got from the tech head at Express Online, almost two years back, when I wanted RSS feeds to be rolled out. Now, in a different place and a different time, the story has not changed at all. Technology in media circles is like looking at an unconscious yeti - they are scared, awed and can’t make any sense of it. Believe it or not, what clinches the case in most places is not the cost or the utility, but that who had the nicest Power Point presentation.
safe to say that despite being a journalist(till sometime in the recent past) and reading comments on the media.. i can say that its a particularly bad story (its incidentally about blogging) & therefore has been hashed out point for point.. you should call the journalist and make sure he knows all the mistakes (factual and otherwise) and misquotes..so may be the next time he would make an effort to research a subject in detail before printing anything about it.
Thanks J. I told him on his face while he was conducting the “interview.” Where do you think the “Yazad Jal … doesn’t suffer blog-illiterates lightly.” come from? ;-)
Did Murali get back to you with any explanations for weilding an an “editor’s scalpel?” From what you say, it looks more like a hatchet job.
The express column has a feedback option — I suggest getting all bloggers to post their two bits and letting Menon and Indian Express know what the blogosphere thinks about them.
I read this in the paper last weekend, you really don’t look 32 at all. :-)
Ok, I’m a features writer at the Indian Express too, so I don’t want to sound like I’m defending my colleague. I have no right, since it’s his article. I have asked him to glance at Yazad’s post and maybe he’ll have something to say for himself. There are just a few points I wish to dicuss.
1The basic difference between a news and features story is that the latter is of a milder disposition. Mood, appearance, colour are factors incorporated to give the story flavour, otherwise it’s just dry facts. Thus, the need for a face to face interview. Call us old-fashioned but when you meet a person, you get so much more than on the phone or via email. As for the “boyish looking 32 year old” it’s just a dash of that garnish I was talking about, and does not dilute the story. If you’re describing the Prime Minister delivering a historic speech for instance, you want to know whether there was sweat dripping from his brow, how many times he gulped etc. Anyway that’s just an example, but I hope you get the importance of physical description.
2 Age similarly adds perspective. Murali called to check how old Yazad was, so that he would not get it wrong. There’s never any harm in checking twice, even thrice.
3 Photographers are given briefs according to the story, so they do their best to comply. If an hour was spent with Yazad to get a good photo, two have been wasted on Aishwarya Rai for that perfect angle. Photographs attract readers to a copy, especially in a lifestyle supplement like the EYE.
Anyway, these are purely personal thoughts in response to what I read. For posterity, Yazad I feel that you should always have your quote read back to you, or insist that the reporter use a dictaphone.
Maybe you might also want to write in to our response column
mumbainewsline@expressindia.com.
Cheers
I’m glad you took the time to respond Sulakshana. BTW, I did tell Murali that I would be commenting on my blog about the piece.
I get your point on physical description (and I must say it is flattering to be called boyish). My point is that somehow the physical description overshadowed everything else. In your example, I’m sure what the PM said is more important, and the sweat or gulps secondary.
Manoj Patil (the photographer) was good fun and I quite enjoyed the hour spent with him. He was warm, friendly and a go getter with spunk!
I feel there’s so much more about blogging and I did talk a lot about it with Murali (none of which was in the article). The story of how SEA-EAT started and became a focal point of the information network on the Tsunami is just one example. So reading a collection of quotes is disappointing when you have given the reporter a lot of meat to write on.
Hey Yazad, great that you documented the entirety of your experience on the blog - the reporter who met me seemed to be much more familiar with the territory of blogs, fostering in me a false sense of security. To be sure, am going to benefit from all the media experiences/horror stories on this post!
I wish I had a blog. As the writer of the Sunday Express piece on blogging, I could have then retaliated at yazad jal’s rant on the article.
But I’ll take the difficult route and try to defend myself point by point in a sensible manner.Ranting back is way too easy.
All this, of course, is in my capacity as a journalist. My personal views on bloggers, I’ll keep to myself.
And by the way, jal, during the course of our meeting, we’d discussed about your writing for the paper. Despite all this verbal sparring, that offer still stands as long it is not another blinkered rant.
YJ: The very first thing that hit me about Murali Menon is that he didn’t know anything whatsoever about blogs and worse he hadn’t even visited any.
Handwiring and the like is obviously beyond me. But Jal, I’m aware of blogs. And without both prior knowledge and research, how in the world do you think we knew about riverbend etc?
YJ: When requested for an interview I generally ask the reporter to email me a list of questions, and we can take it forward once he goes through my replies. This way if he’s going to quote me, he has the quotes exactly as I want them.
Just how many times have you been interviewed, Jal? And in what capacity? In any case, yes, I should have e-mailed you a list of questions. But I thought it would be better if I personally met you. E-mail, to me at least, is a very impersonal way of making contact.
YJ: If we’d done some email, I could have answered 75% of what he asked – with links to blogs. And well I wouldn’t be misquoted. Two examples: I was asked why I blog instead of writing for a newspaper / magazine. My reply “I like being my own editor.” What came in the paper: [likes playing] ‘‘judgmental journalist without worrying about an editor’s scalpel’’. Wow! I like the phrase, but I definitely did not say it.
If you remember right, and I have my notes to prove it, immediately after you said that you like being your own editor, I asked you whether that amounted to taking a very judgemental view of things. And you said yes, you liked being a judgemental hack without
worrying about an editor.
YJ: Menon also kept putting words in my mouth. One of his mantras was blogs as “alternative media.” I agree, but too much is made of it. But this is what he quoted me “Ultimately, and this is a romantic view, I want my blog and others like it to be a form of unbiased, alternative media.” Unbiased? Unbiased? My blog, as with every other medium of information, is biased. I did specifically talk about media biases as well. I have no idea where the unbiased popped in. It ruined my sarcasm – “romantic view” and all.
Maybe, biased was an inappropriate word. My apologies. But as far as the romantic view goes, I’m afraid I’m putting my money where your mouth is.
YJ: I wonder how my age or my looks matter to what I write. I found the “boyish looking 32 year old” very page 3 style. And it detracts from the substance. Nearly everybody who noticed the piece honed on to that statement (including Quizman). Menon actually calls me a day after the interview to ask my age. Methinks I should have said I’m 44.
What’s wrong with “boyish-looking” and how is it Page 3? I didnt say that jal was wearing a light blue Armani shirt, with a classy Zegna belt? It’s just a way of describing how a person looks.
And how do those two words detract from the substance? The article was not wholly about blogs, it was also about the people behind them. I do hope you understand. And as far as age goes, that, jal, is journalism 101. And I didn’t call to ask you about your age. The call was made to decipher what anarcaplib actually meant.
YJ: No talk about group blogs although I’d talked a hell of a lot about the phenomenon. Desimediabitch, SEA-EAT are group blogs (so is mine to an extent). SEA-EAT (and Desi Media Bitch) are both great examples of how spontaneous order works.
No talk about group blogs? The peg of the story was SEA-EAT and desi media bitch, too. And you’re saying we didnt cover that aspect. In fact, we chose to stay away from people who just maintained their personal diaries on the net. And after talking to about the first few group bloggers, we realised that all bloggers sound the same on certain points.
Ideas and principles sound like hot air unless they are converted into action. We doff our hats to dina and rohit, but the time for jal to take a bow has not come yet.
YJ: Just one rant here. I told Menon that I admired S Anand because he’d handwired his blog. Menon asked what that meant and I told him. (Writing the code yourself instead of using a ready made program like Movable Type or Blogger). BTW, Aadisht has also handwired his blog.
You actually wanted the article to explain what handwiring means? The Eye is a lifestyle supplement, which focuses more on people and trends. All that blogging jargon would be better suited for an internet magazine.
YJ: One thing that got reinforced by this article is the old doubt I’ve had that feature writers give you only the very basic info. And this is a feature in a newspaper I admire. So be it. I’m tired of ranting.
When you have about 1,000 words and two days to react to news and write about a sub-culture, equal emphasis on each and everything will not be possible. And I think you should know this, even a lot of Gen X’ers still dont know what the heck blogging is all about.
Finally, if you ever wish to move on from being a blogger with “journalistic pretensions'’ to an actual print journalist, you are welcome to try the Indian Express. Vacancies for interns are always open.
Thanks Murali for throwing down the gauntlet. I will accept (not as an “intern” but as a freelance writer).
Let’s end this here. I’ve made my rant and I’m happy you’ve given your detailed response. This is why I like blogs — it gave you the chance to respond even though you don’t have a blog!
I liked Murali’s befitting reply. He has responded positively to Yazad’s rant.
Actually, Yazad, i think you got a fairly clued in reporter, from what i remember of the article.
Take some of the questions i answered.
(from a TV news channel, off-camera) “So tell me, what’s the difference between a chatroom, a website and a blog.”
(After that, meeting a young journo from Outlook who actually read blogs regularly was a wondrously pleasant surprise. Never mind that the mag dropped the story because a film star died.)
(from a US mag that had something to do with fashion) “Are there any attractive young American women in your team?”
Dina and Rohit will tell you even funnier stuff.
The point i’m waffling towards, i guess, is that traditional media in India are only beginning to understand the net beyond googling for info. Blogs are even more esoteric to them. They’ll learn. This is a start.
And hey, you do look kinda boyish.
I remember having to explain the details of XML for 45 minutes to a seriously clue-deprived business journalist from Business Today. She had no idea what it was, and kept asking me questions like “what percentage of your web pages are HTML and what percentage are XML?”
(I got one quote for my trouble.)
I am a writer for BT, and I really can’t recall when on earth we did a article on HTML and XML in the recent past. Give me a link to the article or tell me when we did it. True, while some people in journalism including some of my colleagues are majorly ‘clue-deprived’ expecting journo’s to know everything isto be a bit ‘optimistic’. secondly, it is a lot easier to maintain a blog where you don’t have to worry about revenues or readers than it is to run a magazine. I don’t wish to defend mainstream media, but blogging in India cannot take off in the foreseeable future. For god’s sakle there are only 11 million PC’s here and most PLU’s would rather download porn than read other people’s rants.
Great design! ;)
[url=http://memory-foam-mattress.0catch.com/] memory foam mattress [/url]