Yes, we are, but that’s okay. This is a great conversation, imho!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it. I can bring it back on topic, I promise!

To play devil’s advocate on the traditional media versus blog debate, I would counter that, while the ideals of journalism call for neutrality and accuracy, and while I have no doubt that the majority of individual journalists believe strongly in these ideals and attempt to do their jobs with integrity, then the system is not set up to make those ideals a priority much less a reality.

It depends what system is in play there. Since 9/11 the States has been in this vice grip hold of fear. It appeared to me that either people wanted light news (Paris wears no panties) just not to be reminded of daily reality or that it was just not done to criticise the commander in chief after he pulled the nation through this big shock. I absolutely agree that the US media played along, forgetting or neglecting their duty to be critical and bring the real news. This however was done outside the US, leaving many American’s to wonder why we disliked Bush, dared to comment on how the country was run and so on. For example when Katrina happened, it was hard to explain to people that we allies offered help, even moved in to help *after* Bush told us no. We just did. It was stunning that the fear kept many so docile: first the Patriot Act (many librarians protested about that, but oh well, it fell on deaf ears because the War on Terror was more important), suspension of Habeas Corpus (that really made me go like, do I even want to visit the states now), Iraq & lies, the financing of this war and how the federal reserve got forced as a result. I think many outsiders saw the crisis coming, also do to good and diligent reporting of journalists.

To go back to my previous example, as the Bush administration tore apart the U.S. in almost every way imaginable, most mainstream media sources reported on pop culture “scandals” and the outcome of reality television shows. One had to really dig to find out about the changes the Bush administration was making to, say, and banking industry regulations. Bobby was doing this digging at the time, and he’d often remark to me that, while people were getting hot and bothered over Bush’s mangling of English and so on, no one was paying attention to the rampant corporate deregulation the Bush administration was effecting. Lo, four years later, it’s all we can talk about.

But as I explained above, I can understand how the MSM played along in this fear mongering scheme and neglected what they should have done all along. Let’s hope that with Obama they make up for it.

Because the reality is that most media sources (at least in the U.S.) are not only for-profit but are oftentimes owned or managed by individuals/corporations for whom “truth” and “neutrality” is not in their own best interests.

Oh yes, but then it can even be much worse. Look at Italy where a media tycoon Berlusconi is also president of the country. There the lines are so blurred that it isn’t even funny anymore.

(In fact, I often tease Bobby that he should start a political blog because he has an uncanny habit of being right about things like this!)

I’d read it

This does not mean that blogger-based news is a perfect solution. I realize that it is far from it, most notably because of the issues of accuracy and bias. It requires critical and skeptical thinking every step of the way. The difference, for me, is that I believe that many people are good people, interested in doing good with their actions. I can’t say that of the individuals and interests that control the mainstream media.

No, but then the lines in blogland are blurred sometimes because either companies own blogs and they pay the blogger for their content or it are just sock puppets for the company. I do believe that the good and critical blogs are rewarded because those bloggers feel the responsibility to pick up the slack where the MSM failed. They should be hired by those newspapers. I mean come to think of it, why is it that men like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are the critical followers (of course it is satire, but satire has a core of truth to it) instead of the MSM?

Bloggers carry less authority and, therefore, earn more scrutiny, and I think that scrutiny is in our best interests.

During this election race, I scrutinised every article I read about those two, even if it came from the MSM. There were good neutral sites which gave insight in budgets and such, so that helped me to filter out rumours and gossips from hard facts. It just takes a more active approach to the news these days. It was however surprising to see that right wingers got upset with the MSM in Palin’s case where an amateur blogger started it (of course to those right wingers it had to be the fault of the MSM).

Why shouldn’t everyone have a blog and put their opinions on the Web? I think discomfort with this idea stems from the idea that some people’s opinions are more valuable than others, which reinforces a traditional power structure beneficial only to a few.

The constant harping by some people over the “narcissism” of Everyday Jane who thinks that her thoughts on the global economy are worth putting up in public calls me to ask, why aren’t they? Why aren’t the thoughts, ideas, and experiences of everyday people–including people who are often marginalized–worth putting out in public if they so desire? It smacks of elitism when I hear people make the argument that Everyday Jane couldn’t possibly have anything worth saying because she’s Everyday Jane. If she had something worth saying, she’d be rich or have a degree from Harvard or work for CNN.

Perhaps some pull the elitist card, but I am still left to ponder as to the why and the motivation of people to blog and why since the arrival of web 2.0 mostly, it has exploded. It is interesting to look back at history, to look at the influence of media (internet included) as to the why people feel the need to shout out more. Is it because society has hardened and has become more individualistic? Is it isolation of so many, the change that has occurred in many communities (not online ones) that made people go out there to shout out to be heard? I sometimes the same goes for fanfic. A fandom connects people and archives or online communities enables people to reach out and find others who think alike. The blogging thing however isn’t so much about online social communities and to me appears to serve a different purpose than publishing fanfic does.

I don’t have numbers like Juno, or even like you, I am sure, but for Silm vs. LotR fanfic I can provide one comparison:

My most popular Silm novella, A New Day, web-wide has perhaps nearly 3,000 hits.
My most popular LotR novel, The Princess and the Horse Lord, has about 80,000.

In my personal opinion, the first is a better piece of work. I certainly love it more myself.

I do want to be read. I do not write only for myself–it’s too much work. I could think the same thoughts and not bother with the grammar and style questions. Some people just write like it is drinking a glass of water. It doesn’t work that way for me.

On the market, if I am going to write for a market, then I expect to paid. My fanfic is for love of the original, kive ti study it, love to fiddle around and change it, and like Rhapsody, love the community, the shared interests, and finding geeks willing to talk about my obsession. If there were no one to talk to and share with at all, then I just wouldn’t write it, I would read more.

As far as making a living writing, I would still write the books first and then look for the agent/publisher. I have a pride in my work product that I don’t think I could ever completely abandon.

Cinema has become increasingly boring and repetitive over the last years. It’s always more of the same, but even while I thought Shrek was nice that doesn’t mean I need Shrek II and a cat spin off. Or that while I adored POTC, I need 10 to 15 parts of it. I will make an exception for “Wolverine” only because of the general eyecandy:)

So, as fanfic writers we have the very freeing ability to write for nobody but us, to try whatever we want to try and to be as experimental as we dare. We’d be stupid if we went and threw that away.

“The market” has literature in a firm grip. Movies as well – instead of trying something new we’re getting the fifth and sixth installment of a franchise (POTC anyone?) or another remake of a movie that was successful 30 years ago.

Yes! My husband and I were talking about this with respect to movies the other night. He is a hockey player and keeps up with the hockey community online, and he recently found out that Hollywood is remaking the hockey cult classic Slapshot. He was appalled. And we went through a list of recent movies and came to the conclusion that the vast majority of movies being made these days are

1) sequels to a movie already made that may or may not have been good the first time around (e.g., PotC, as you pointed out, or the awful Friedberg/Seltzer franchise),

2) a remake of an existing movie (e.g., the new Friday the 13th, released in the U.S. this weekend), or

3) a movie based on an existing book, story, or television show (e.g., The Strange Case of Benjamin Button, Coraline (both good), or Inkheart (fairly awful), to name three recent ones.)

The point is that there is no originality; the best movies, imho, tend to come from the third category, largely because the creators of the stories on which they are based tend to be awesome, imaginative writers. So the project is halfway successful from the get-go. (Although Inkheart-the-movie is certainly an example of how a good story really is only the halfway point and how quickly Brendan Fraiser poor realization of that story can tank the movie.)

As a fan of both fantasy literature and movies, the slim pickings of late and the sense that, as you noted, it’s because the producers don’t think that the audience is intelligent enough to want or appreciate anything better is pretty damned depressing.

But the funny thing is: I’m writing fanfiction. Since I don’t earn money with my writing, I don’t have to take into account how many will read my story. So, I write for myself.

Yes! That is what I love about fan-writing: It is so much easier to do that. There is much less temptation to seek fortunes and prestige. I write because the story won’t let me do any differently. I find the idea of suppressing the story that begs to be written in favor of another that will earn me fleeting popularity to be not only a foreign concept in fandom but an extremely distasteful one.

As we’ve talked about in email before, I chalk up these articles (especially LH’s) as further proof of how that group just does not get that a big part of what makes fandom so great (and many fans agree) is that it’s not for profit. We don’t have to worry about fame and fortune … and, yes, I do mean worry. I don’t even know why I bother replying to their blog anymore; it was long ago clear to me that their reason for being a part of fandom and mine are just about polar opposites.

I won’t argue the fact that there are writers who write fanfiction for the sole fact of getting recognized throughout a certain community. But I don’t think this notion holds true for very many for the simple fact that writing fanfiction (even bad fanfiction) take a creative effort and costs time. If you “only” want to be recognized, want to be a household name, then you can do many other things in fandom that are easier and could have the same effect (host an archive, or write a blog or whatever). So, I firmly believe and hope that there’s only a small percentage of people using the standards the FH post feels are inherent to fanfiction.

I do understand about “the market”, the *professional* market. Too many people read exactly one book in their lives over and over again. I had to review Christine Feehan’s vampire novels (luckily only the first two) where the second novel was an exact copy of the first. The fact that her series has 19 parts does not bode well for the originality of her fiction. “The market” has literature in a firm grip. Movies as well – instead of trying something new we’re getting the fifth and sixth installment of a franchise (POTC anyone?) or another remake of a movie that was successful 30 years ago. It tells me that the people pulling the strings are afraid and don’t believe in the intelligence of their audience.

But the funny thing is: I’m writing fanfiction. Since I don’t earn money with my writing, I don’t have to take into account how many will read my story. So, I write for myself. When I write, I never think of who will like that or not. Of course I might put some fanservice into a story, but the overall plot, the heart of the story, will be what I want it to be and not what I think readers out there want to read.

Yes, I do believe in the distinction between writing and posting you make. I try to make my fiction easily accessable, because I want it to be found. But in the end, I don’t write for a review like “hey, that was exactly what the summary said and I loved it”. I prefer a review like “I was sceptical, but I gave it a go and I’m glad a did”. I’ve gotten a few of the latter and I’m awfully proud of them.

To play devil’s advocate on the traditional media versus blog debate, I would counter that, while the ideals of journalism call for neutrality and accuracy, and while I have no doubt that the majority of individual journalists believe strongly in these ideals and attempt to do their jobs with integrity, then the system is not set up to make those ideals a priority much less a reality.

Because the reality is that most media sources (at least in the U.S.) are not only for-profit but are oftentimes owned or managed by individuals/corporations for whom “truth” and “neutrality” is not in their own best interests.

To go back to my previous example, as the Bush administration tore apart the U.S. in almost every way imaginable, most mainstream media sources reported on pop culture “scandals” and the outcome of reality television shows. One had to really dig to find out about the changes the Bush administration was making to, say, banking industry regulations. Bobby was doing this digging at the time, and he’d often remark to me that, while people were getting hot and bothered over Bush’s mangling of English and so on, no one was paying attention to the rampant corporate deregulation the Bush administration was effecting. Lo, four years later, it’s all we can talk about.

(In fact, I often tease Bobby that he should start a political blog because he has an uncanny habit of being right about things like this!)

I do not place the blame for this on the shoulders of individual journalists. I have no doubt that, given the choice between Paris Hilton’s DUI and economic monster-shouting, most journalists would choose the monster-shouting and its save-the-world persona. As it was, though, the mainstream media failed. Big time. When they should have been scrutinizing a Presidential administration that was steeped in controversy from the start, they turned instead to pop culture to sell newspapers or get page-clicks.

This does not mean that blogger-based news is a perfect solution. I realize that it is far from it, most notably because of the issues of accuracy and bias. It requires critical and skeptical thinking every step of the way. The difference, for me, is that I believe that many people are good people, interested in doing good with their actions. I can’t say that of the individuals and interests that control the mainstream media.

And, on the issue of critical and skeptical thinking, I do not think it is a bad thing that people be asked to think about and evaluate what they read and become less of sheeple, less inclined to believe something ” ’cause I saw it on TV.” A lot of people drank the Kool-aid for a long time with regards to the Bush administration and, yes, I put blame for that in part on the shoulders of media giants that should have been doing their job of scrutinizing him more closely. (I think I see more scrutiny of Obama, only a few weeks into office! And that is a good thing.) Bloggers carry less authority and, therefore, earn more scrutiny, and I think that scrutiny is in our best interests.

The point of narcissm remains: with the easy way these days to start a site or put up a blog… who is reading all these blogs, why would people start a blog? What are their sole reasons why one would seek out the internet to shout their opinions on the web.

Why shouldn’t everyone have a blog and put their opinions on the Web? I think discomfort with this idea stems from the idea that some people’s opinions are more valuable than others, which reinforces a traditional power structure beneficial only to a few. If the majority of blogs are poorly written drek, then they are poorly written drek. No need to say anymore about them, just as, when choosing reading material, I go to some sites over others without the need to dwell on how those that I avoid attract mostly crap. I vote with my feet, as the saying goes. The constant harping by some people over the “narcissism” of Everyday Jane who thinks that her thoughts on the global economy are worth putting up in public calls me to ask, why aren’t they? Why aren’t the thoughts, ideas, and experiences of everyday people–including people who are often marginalized–worth putting out in public if they so desire? It smacks of elitism when I hear people make the argument that Everyday Jane couldn’t possibly have anything worth saying because she’s Everyday Jane. If she had something worth saying, she’d be rich or have a degree from Harvard or work for CNN.

Or: Everyday Jane’s blog about the economy (for example) is drek, but the entertainment pages that nearly every news source has are more reputable? Some of the shallow direct-from-the-AP-wire that involve the investigation and thought of a third-grade book report are superior? I don’t think that you’re saying this, for the record , but plenty of people would, and in the end, that comes down to the elitist idea that if it isn’t backed by rich, important people and their corporations, then it must be crap put up only in the narcissistic interests of its writer.

However, Keen also adresses the differences between journalists who have ethics and fact checking to do compared to bloggers (Michelle Malkin comes to mind) who are not neutral and will spout out anything just to hurt or damage others. The traditional profession of a journalist, the neutral stance they should have has come under fire by bloggers who just take advantage of the self-publishing option and do not have to face any concequences what so ever. For example, this summer when the whole Trig Palin (is he her son or not) spiel was played out, one thing stood out. This rumour was not started in the traditional media (who would have to hold themselves to fact and source checking), but was played out and started on a blog at the daily Kos. Such influence is worrisome because on what should we rely on for the truth if bloggers with a non-neutral stance can control the political scene more than the traditional media could. Should bloggers there for also have a moral code, that they at least offer hear say or do fact checking themselves?

Then he’s also attacking wikipedia and I agree completely on this with him, but some other things he’s ranting on about… not so much. I always say and will continue to say: the right of freedom of speech comes with responsibility and with the growing anynomisity a lot of hurt and damages is done when people simple will not want to take that responsibility. And following his blog for some time, I don’t think he feels threathened, he does make excellent points but he brings it so bitterly

So what do you get, governments or company wanting to have more control over content (think LJ). I haven’t read the book that far if he’s ranting about self-publishing though.

It is a sad thing however, but the publishing houses apparently do want something fresh so that they can boast that they’ve discovered this new author. The ebooks development however remains interesting to see how this will play out and which major ebook reader makers will finally claim the market position. For example the Amazon Kindle e-reader is less flexible than the Irex Iliad.

I’d argue it’s more narcissistic to be published in a two-bit magazine with a circulation of 40 people just to frame it and hang it on the wall of one’s study and show one’s friends than it is to write a blog or put a story up on the Internet

It would even be more narcissistic (what a scrabble word) if you’d put up the scan of the article up on your blog for the whole world to see However you’d probably have a squabble about that with the publisher if you did that. The point of narcissm remains: with the easy way these days to start a site or put up a blog… who is reading all these blogs, why would people start a blog? What are their sole reasons why one would seek out the internet to shout their opinions on the web. Lately I have heard of companies seeking out possible new employees on the web to see how they express themselves online and based on that they will not hire a person. Is the way how one presents him or herself on the web a genuine reflection of themselves? Another thing I have been pondering about is how the internet as a medium is used to hurt and damage people, since apparently there are no concequences for the person in question.

We’re way off topic, aren’t we?

The Internet, of course, has changed that. Look at how the music industry resisted mp3 and digital music and how many big companies have suffered! Now that e-publishing and e-book readers are becoming better and more affordable and more popular, I can imagine they’re having an enormous “Oh shit” moment as they foresee people likewise trading in the watered-down, mass-produced crap they’ve been spoon-fed all these years for something that is cheaper, easier, and better.

The last time opportunities opened this quickly for everyperson to be a writer was with the invention of the printing press. What happened then? The people in power–heads of Church and State–were quick to put censorship into place, much of which stayed in place for centuries.

Unfortunately for publishers, this isn’t an option anymore. So what to do? They discredit it. Associate self-publishing with the last desperate lunge of crappy writers who will foist their self-published “masterpieces” on their friends and family and who have no grasp of their enormous suckitude. Make self-publication a barrier to “legitimate” outlets. (Which they do. Publishers are known to Google new authors to see if they’re self-published. If they are: goodbye.) Make it about narcissism, not about sharing ideas that would never pass the first desk in a major publishing house, not about giving voice to people who have been told to shush and behave themselves for … well, just about forever.

For example, look at blogging. When blogging first took off, the “legitimate” news outlets started screeching about how bloggers were held to no standards and how they could lie or exaggerate …

But. During the worst of the Bush years (for me, anyway: the time when he was doing awful things yet still managed to maintain a high approval rating), what was the mainstream press writing about? Britney Spears going out without pants on, Paris Hilton’s cell phone being stolen, Lindsey Lohan’s latest stint in rehab. I remember going onto MSN for news one day *gasp!* and the headline story was about who won American Idle Idol. This was during a time when the Bush administration was really ramping up their human rights atrocities at places like Gitmo, when war casualities were skyrocketing, when they were putting into place the economic policies that now have the world’s economy in the tank … you would think that the news media could spare a moment for that.

That was the moment when I realized that mainstream news sources had failed me. I still read on sites like MSN and CNN, but I do more reading on blogs concerned with issues I care about and written by people who, until the rise of the Internet, weren’t allowed to speak. At least, not anywhere that I could hear them.

I’m convinced that people like Keen are threatened because the Internet allows people who would otherwise be silenced to speak. This is a major threat to those who depend on the power structure remaining as it is.

I’d argue it’s more narcissistic to be published in a two-bit magazine with a circulation of 40 people just to frame it and hang it on the wall of one’s study and show one’s friends than it is to write a blog or put a story up on the Internet. And I’ve been published in two-bit magazines and I blog, so I’m fairly unbiased in that assessment.

Juno: I agree with you. To continue the rant that I just foisted upon poor Rhapsody, I refuse to believe the people whose livelihoods are invested in traditional publishing venues when they tell me that a less-traditional option is bad for me. That’s like trusting Exxon Mobile’s report on global warming.

I see what has happened with the music industry with respect to the Internet, what’s happening more and more now with the film industry, and I cannot believe that books will remain untouched by this. The other day, I bought a skinny paperback copy of Coraline. For $13. $13?! If I had, instead, the option to download the book to an e-book reader for, say, $5, I would even give up the smell of the ink and the feel of the pages.

My #1 fear as an author is having happen to my stories what happened to LeGuin’s Earthsea when movie rights that were probably purchased well before the book became a fantasy staple allowed a shoddy movie bearing the name of her work to be made, a movie that completely perverted one of the most basic ideals of her work. I’d sooner my writing rot virtually unread and my name expire, unknown, than to have my ideas and words perverted so that a publishing house can make money on me. So I’m more and more convinced these days that I won’t even take a chance on a big publishing house. It’s not worth the risk, not as I’ve set my priorities as a writer.