Houblog

The following letter was mailed by myself to the former Pajamas Media, late last night:

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I did not sign up with the former PJ media to become associated with the poor handling of the opening day criticism displayed on LGF, nor the evident lack of basic, commonsense research that went into the selection of the new name for this business.

Houblog can hardly be considered even a minor player in the blogsphere, but I have certain standards in my work; standards that led me to create the blog in the first place. I desire to build traffic and a second income, as well as learn how to be a better blogger. The lack of professionalism — indeed, the lack of a business plan — I have seen thus far has not impressed me; in fact the former is as embarassing to me as the latter has been disappointing, thus far.

Further, the self-important tone evident in some articles thus far (re: the blogsphere vs. the newsmakers) engenders a profoundly negative reaction from me.. Even the Old Media isn’t so transparent; it refers to itself in the “third-person obscure” by the use of such terms as “observers” or the ever-popular “experts.” There are better ways of doing the same thing among ourselves than what we’ve seen today–if such is even necessary.

I don’t claim to be smarter than the people in charge of the former Pajamas Media; hindsight is 20-20 and I probably would have fallen into many of the same errors. But that’s why YOU are supposed to be leading, and I am supposed to be following: you are the professionals who Have A Clue. And are Professionally Professional, you know, smart. (Yes, that’s sarcasm.) Only you’re not acting like professionals; you’re coming across like amateurs.

Especially in how Ms. Althouse got abused for treating the former Pajamas Media as she would any other story — i.e.: she didn’t exactly try to spare your feelings when she said you screwed up. She called it as she saw it, like she always does. So Mr. Johnson all but invited his readers to shower abuse on her? That’s as classy as talking about pus and semen in polite company. Don’t try to excuse such behavior by crying “Wah! But Daddy, she did it first!” We wouldn’t accept such behavior from any editor or producer in the Old Media would we? One guy makes a smarmy comment about pajamas, and we stuff it down his throat with a new business. What does that say about the fate of Charles Johnson? Consider the precedent before being stupid…is LGF to be known as “The Pus-blog of the Future?”

I’m not going to wed myself or my blog to that. I don’t hesitate to abuse people on my blog, but I AM an amateur–one with a (sometime) rantblog. I’m not running a very public business. So….. I have signed nothing since the original four month agreement last summer. That time is expired, or nearly so. I am going to give this thirty (30) days, to see if the ship can be righted. This is, to me, a three part process:

1. The obvious copyright infringement with Open Source Media must be resolved.
2. A better editorial “voice” must emerge in the original news articles.
3. All bloggers affiliated with the project formerly known as Pajamas Media need to be briefed on what such association means to us. What is the growth strategy? What is the business plan? What can we expect to get out of being in your blogroll, and what do you want in return? What editorial conditions and other ground rules apply to us?

A public apology to Ms. Althouse would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath. However, I am willing to discuss these opinions and matters with anyone at the former Pajamas Media. I am not holding my breath about that either, so I presume our next contact will be in thirty days. At that time, I will decide if I am willing to remain on your blogroll any longer. Or you may decide I don’t belong there now. Association is a choice we both have to make, is it not?

– Ubu Roi

I doubt I’ll be publishing further e-mails (should any pass between myself and the former Pajamas Media [rubs jaw from saying that umpteen times]) but I’m not going to state that unconditionally. News orgainizations should never be a part of the news themselves, something Novak, Woodward, Mapes, Rather, and a whole lot of other Old Media types have forgotten.

You know, the Romans used to say, “Who will guard the guardians?” Now one should ask, “Who will report the reporters?”

But to that, there’s an answer: “Bloggers.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 17th, 2005 at 7:00 am and is filed under Administrative, Random Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.