In Chapter Five of "Web Journalism," Stovall quotes from a blog on the San Jose Mercury News website:
Some bozos hacked the Recording Industry Association of America's website. Stupid and counterproductive. Sigh...
According to Stovall, Steve Outing of the Poynter Institute singled out this quote as an example of the kind of "forceful and personal" writing that bloggers can acheive when "freed" from the constraints of print.
No disrespect to Stovall or Outing, but if news blogging is going the way of the teenage diary, then I'll have to join the Luddites.
Having said that, though, it was only last week that my blog/essay for this class ended with a tossed-off reference to my formerly sprained ankle, a joke with only a marginal connection to the topic at hand. I never would have included a comment like that on a PAPER, a physical thing that I printed out and handed to Prof. Musser, even if it was just a short response paper. There seems to be a psychological difference in writing for these two media, regardless of the purpose and audience.
Is blogging collapsing the distinction between personal and professional writing? It seems to be, but why? Why do we feel we have the license to loosen the old rules of formality when we're writing out here in the ether instead of on the page?
Perhaps the fact that we're not killing trees to produce web journalism means we allow ourselves indulgences that we would not commit to paper. In previous posts I went on at length about how the web gives me the freedom to go on at length. But Stovall challenges this notion in Chapter Five: studies show that Internet users crave scannability, he says. They are less tolerant of excessive verbiage online than on paper since that pixillated glow is still an eyesore even after all the advances in screen technology.
Maybe this is why the Mercury News blogger decided to "sigh" wistfully instead of elucidating his views on the RIAA. Maybe because the Internet has replaced the traditional "town hall" we feel the impulse to get conversational every time we log on. But casual, conversational writing is almost always more verbose, less efficient, than formal writing.
Those snobs among us who know how to write professionally would be wise to nurture that skill. The rules of grammar and style are not set in stone; they evolve over time, usually for the better, I think. But they shouldn't go out the window just because we've created a hip new medium that Strunk and White never foresaw.
Now in the interests of brevity I'll end here and move to my personal blog, where I'll have the freedom to write like a sullen thirteen year-old if I wish. (Sigh...)
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