Chekhov's Mistress
What Mr. Ford Doesn’t Understand…
In a recent article in the NY Times on book reviewing and blogging (Are Book Reviewers Out of Print? May 2, 2007), the novelist Richard Ford was quoted as saying:
“Newspapers, by having institutional backing, have a responsible relationship not only to their publisher but to their readership,” Mr. Ford said, “in a way that some guy sitting in his basement in Terre Haute maybe doesn’t.”
What Mr. Ford, who has never “looked at a literary blog,” doesn’t understand is that that unlike newspapers, a blog’s readers have absolutely no incentive to return, thus creating an implicit responsibility on the part of the blogger – in short, you create your own credibility.
A newspaper’s readers will return out of loyalty or habit; out of the social capital that comes from the shared experience of reading the same news; out of an (occasionally misplaced) idea that a newspaper, because of its institutional (advertising based) backing, or better said, it’s brand, is the last word, when in fact, editor or no, the quality and veracity of any given article sits solely with the author (that’s been proven time and again and is also precisely why some journalists build a reputation and others don’t).
I should also note to the Fords of the world that like it or not, a whole heck of a lot of people will be reading alternatives to their local newspaper (will they have a choice?) to decide whether or not to read your books. That said, I have my own concerns about blogs and the role they play in the cultural conversation, but I’ll have more to say about that later. We’ve been talking about this sort of thing for years around here in the blogoshpere – so much so that what I’m saying here feels oh so repetitive to me – but it’s interesting that the it’s being discussed at high places only when newspaper book editors are getting axed with alarming frequency.
This is a good time to mention that I will be moderating a panel at this year’s Book Expo, called “Blogs: Is Their Growing Influence a Tastemakers Dilemma? The Crossover Hurdle” (I can’t claim to have made up that title). Our panelists include Dwight Garner, Anne Fernald, James Marcus and Lizzie Skurnick. You can see the information at the BookExpo site, although they’ve yet to fix a typo, having left out one of the panelists. Unfortunately for those not attending BEA, this is a closed panel to attendees only. Sorry to make it such an exclusive thing, but when I tried to put a similar panel together earlier in the year – without “institutional” backing – nobody wanted to get involved.
comments
I think Ford’s comment was irritating, especially since he’s never read a literary blog, but on another level, I can understand where he’s coming from. Anyone can put up a blog in a matter of minutes, despite their background, but being a journalist implies that you have certain credentials and, in some cases, a certain level of education. It’s not too surprising that bloggers aren’t often taken seriously; I blog and I rarely take it seriously. And a lot of blogs don’t require much effort. Some bloggers can get away with slapping up a link or two every day. That’s not to disparage the bloggers who do that--I’m busy, so I like occasional one-liners and quick summaries--but you see my point, I hope.
– Brandon (05/08 at 02:04 PM)
I agree with you completely. The missing, or unspoken element here is that a big (the biggest) part of what’s going on here is just a bunch of people who love books are talking amongst themselves. I don’t think anyone mistakes a blog for a newspaper, not that newspaper book reviews are all that great for the most part, but the criticisms against blogs are those they’re going to replace newspapers. They only will in the sense that the shutting down of book sections will create a vacuum and blogs will fill it, but that still doesn’t mean that blogs will be the same thing. Of course, that opens up a whole other set of issues (which I just had a three hour conversation about with some veteran arts critics), but all in all, I think the comments on blogs are misunderstood by pretty much everyone.
– Bud Parr (05/09 at 05:20 PM)
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: May 02, 2007
- Filed Under:
Litbloggers & Blog Floggers
- Comments:2
- Links to this Post: Technorati
