Presence

The latest edition of The Commentator has an opinion piece entitled, "An Evil Empire?" I clicked through, expecting a rant on the recent crash-and-burn of the Yankees, but, to my surprise, found instead an article on blogging. The author, Zev Nagel, Editor-In-Chief of the Commie, puts Jewish bloggers directly in the crosshairs, takes aim, and fires away.

Nagel's main gripe with blogs is, in his mind, their pretense towards journalism. He sees Jewish bloggers as increasingly focused on scandal, impropriety and the negative goings-on in the Jewish community, overlooking the positive, and taking an overly and openly subjective tone in their writing. While he is correct, to some extent, that there are particular Jewish blogs that are sensationalistic and overly negative, I think he's missing the greater point as to what blogging represents to the Jewish community. But let's address some of his main points.

First off, to level a claim of negativity at blogs is a bit unfair; old-school journalism outlets broke all the major scandals of recent memory (The Jewish Week or The Forward? Take your pick). The fact that blogs focused on these issues is incidental; they're providing perpsective, not information. And there are plenty of blogs that don't focus on the negative, but provide information and insights on niche areas of Jewish life that other would otherwise not know about.

Another claim made is that blogs are inherently subjective, and make no bones about it; often their authors hide their identity, enabling them to make statements no journalist would make. The assumption is that our media is wholly objective and transparent, but the truth is, it's not. Media inherently caters to an audience; The Jewish Press, The Forward, Yated Ne'eman (whose authors are often citied with first initial, last name only, to protect their identity and modesty) are completely subjective from front to back. There's little chance the The Forward will feature a column by Dr. Yael Respler (and good for them), as their audience doesn't care for it. As a society, we're at the point where we complacently accept the subjectivity of the media; Fox News has become the media outlet for the right, CNN for the left. Blogs are no more subjective, and if they are, at least they're open about it.

Putting the journalism aspects a side (I'm not even touching the "Are blogs journalism question"), I think Nagel missed the chance to analyze the role blogs are playing in the evolving social structure of the Jewish community. The fact that blogs are so easy to use lowers the bar, but the "market" so to speak, has a way of sifting through the chaff. Given time, the blogs of merit emerge, and the ones that spew filth are abandoned or degenerate into sillyness. What's left is a diversity of opinions freely available and open to conversation. With the parocialization of our schools, communities and even our shuls increasing at an alarming rate, blogs could comprise a key component in the salvation of our community.

Just some thoughts, there's more to say, but that's all for me. Check out the rest of the latest edition of the Commie, overall, it looks pretty good.