I have just unsubscribed from the NBCC's Critical Mass feed because, frankly, I am tired of them and their efforts save their jobs while continuing to dump on blogs. And, really, that's all their "campaign" is about. From my end, it appears as though they care more about expressing one-way opinions than engaging in dialogue, can't take our criticism, and have no regard for their site's audience.
Despite repeated pleas from bloggers to lay off, items like the following have been posted to Critical Mass in recent days:
Seriously, though, blogs are kind of like parasitic microorganisms which feed off of a primary host. For the sake of this discussion, the host is clearly print media. Some are the good bacteria and some are transient and viral. Or maybe I can upgrade blogs to the status of some sort of interstitial or synovial fluid, buffering the vital organs of the media (newspaper, television, radio, the Internet)? But, c’mon, if newspapers are dying, then blogs are the maggots come to feast upon their corpses. —Shannon Byrne, publicist for Little, Brown
And:
Another impression: I would take issue with the notion that blogs will somehow replace newspaper book reviews. During a recent visit with a local book club, a group of 16 well-read, highly intelligent women, I asked how many of them had recently read a book review on a blog. The answer was, nobody! Then I asked if any of them had EVER gone to a blog to read book reviews. Again, nobody. The average reader---the average person---just doesn’t do this yet. Maybe we read reviews on Amazon, but that’s it. Readers read book reviews because they happen upon them in the newspaper. —Lee Smith, novelist
First of all, calling blogs "parasitic microorganisms" from a posting on a blog is beyond hypocritical. And, um, did I just read that no one reads blogs on a blog? Let's say there are a million—just to keep it simple—active bloggers out there. Bloggers naturally read other blogs, so it's not hard to generalize that at least a million people read blogs. Asking 16 book club members who don't blog whether or not they read blogs is not much of a revealing survey, no matter how well-read or intelligent they are.
Yesterday, Rebecca Skloot, the Critical Mass blogmistress, posted yet again that the opinions represented do not belong to the NBCC. She is clearly and understandably frustrated at being the recipient of angry emails. I sympathize, but I also left a comment to point out that Critical Mass "represents [the NBCC] to the blogging world, whether or not the opinions expressed are held solely by each individual poster." In other words, it makes the NBCC look bad. I also suggested they put their editing skills to some good use before they alienate their entire audience, most of whom are probably bloggers.
Rebecca responded with:
I understand why this can be confusing, but Critical Mass is actually not the blog of the NBCC. It's the blog of the board of directors, which is entirely different.
Oh. But this makes me wonder. Isn't it the job of the board of directors to represent the organization? Don't they care about image? And:
I've said many times that I'm with all the people who are annoyed by the nasty anti-blogger statements in some of the posts, so I won't go into that again here.
She certainly shouldn't be a punching bag just because she handles the technical side of the site. Yet:
But I will say, when reading any any group blog, it's a mistake to conflate all posters as one.
Aha. So the problem is me.
