In certain quarters of the Ohiosphere, it has been noted that I have been consistently dogging the "Premiere" blogger tag hung on the four -- now three -- bloggers of Wide Open. I'm not a big fan of the "most influential" tag that they gave to Right Angle either...As a 527 media outlet, who does the Plain Dealer think they are naming ANYBODY a premiere blogger? I think the situation played out over the last day or so clearly illustrates that the Plain Dealer has no idea what blogging is really about.
But at least they've tried...that is more than I can say for the Columbus Dispatch, the Cincinnati Enquirier, the Dayton Daily News, or the Toledo Blade...
Would it be a bad thing if Wide Open were to shut down over this fiasco? I think so... As an experiement, I thought Wide Open has been a fairly good entry on the part of a 527 media outlet. It sure wasn't as boring as OPENERS or any of the other vanillia 527 media blogs out there.
There are bloggers who are in it solely for the politics...and then there are those who are in it to make a little money. And then there are people who are in it for both. I think that the Wide Open experiement has been a pretty good step in the development of a cooperative relationship between bloggers and journalism.
Let me put this another way... It isn't that I'm ticked off that I wasn't selected to be a "premiere" blogger, it's that I think it is ridiculous that the Cleveland Plain Dealer thinks that they know what a premier blogger looks like. WMD doesn't get a massive audience, but those who are regular readers here like it enough to come back. And those that don't appreciate WMD don't come back and I don't lose any sleep over that either...
Anyway...back to more important stuff that actually pays...
