Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Cooper's article
Author: John Callender Posted: 7/14/2000; 10:07:49 AM Topic: Cooper's article Msg #: 18625 (In response to 18608) Prev/Next: 18624 / 18626
I realize you're not likely to be an objective interpreter of this particular piece, but the following paragraph strikes me as unambiguous:
At least he didn't accuse me of taking payments from BillG or being part of the Great Microsoft Conspiracy that supposedly brought down OS/2. That's the favorite past-time of a nut job whose Web site reports on the goings-on in the world of technology, offering up a rare stew of fantasy and paranoia that would make a Lyndon LaRouche blush.It's clear (to me, at least) that he's talking about two different people.
You call Cooper's piece "one of the sloppiest self-indulgent bits of writing I've seen." But a day or so ago you were calling Mettalica's Lars Ulrich "stupid." (Or was it "a moron" or "an idiot"? I'm not sure, and since you have a luxury that print journalists don't have, of editing your words after you've published them, I'll have to trust to memory.)
The main reason I read Scripting News is that I enjoy your honest take on events in the industry. I have to admit, though, that there's a guilty entertainment value in seeing your emotions come through from time to time. Personally, I like it when you wax a little flamish. But the fact is, "sloppy" and "self-indulgent" are criticisms that could more aptly be applied to many of your own writings, especially from the perspective of someone who works in the more rigorously edited world of traditional journalism, as Cooper does. As I read his piece, that was his main point. And I think it's a valid one, as far as it goes.
The fact remains, though, that these days I make sites like Scripting News my primary source of news information, and am not likely to read something on ZDnet unless it's linked to by someone whose Cluetrain-style "human voice" is one I've come to trust and appreciate. Like yours.
This is obviously very scary to someone like Cooper. And he should be scared. His profession is changing out from under him. He must feel like Burt Reynolds' character in the film "Boogie Nights," when he meets the amateur porn stars that the age of video has ushered upon him.
I think he can be forgiven, at least to some extent, for a reflexive lashing out at the amateur journalists like yourself who are out-competing him. In his old-media world, in which one needed a corporate patron with a multimillion-dollar printing/mailing budget in order to gain access to a significant audience, having a day job as a programmer was something that a professional (that is, paid, fulltime) journalist could afford to sneer at. In the new, Web-oriented world, however, success is based more on knowledge of one's subject matter than on a facility with semicolons and the inverted-pyramid style. For covering developments in technology, a programmer (who can also write) has a distinct advantage over a more-polished writer who doesn't know as much about the underlying technology.
In the context of our evolving information landscape, this is as it should be. Goodbye, dinosaurs. Bring on the mammals.
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