Given its space limitations, today’s throw-away piece in the New York
Times about the relatively large number of lawyers with popular weblogs
did a fairly good job. See, “Opening Arguments, Endlessly,” by Jonathan
D. Glater, Oct. 7, 2005; via Legal Underground] Naturally, the blawgiverse’s
army of kibitzers (and some of my best friends and alter egos are kibitzers)
is out in force complaining about the article. (see annotated NYT; Volokh)
high noon
the boys refill
their water pistols
Thus, Mike Cernovich has pointed out that Evan Schaeffer practices
law in Illinois and Missouri, not Ohio, as stated in the article and its sidebar list
of sites. Mike says the article shows “why blogs were born – because the
Times can’t get anything right.” That assertion — along with Mike’s conclusion
that “There isn’t too much [thinking] at the Times” — shows why weblogs
frequently can’t be taken very seriously: They’re more about the writer’s pet
peeves and boogeymen than about objective analysis. They go for the
jugular (but hit only capillaries) in order to attack an enemy or nemisis at
every opportunity with gross generalities.
As far as I’m concerned, weblogs were not born to correct
minor factual errors that aren’t important to the main story
being told. Little old ladies and nitpickers have done that
since the first newspaper was published. Let’s hope most
webloggers have more important things on their minds.
Similarly, Jeff at Hippa Blog demonstrates the customary need of many bloggers
to feel more savvy than the uninitiated. He complains:
“oilcanHFs”
“An article about ‘blawgers’ that starts off with a mention
of Daily Kos isn’t about blawgers. It’s about bloggers; they
might be lawyers, but that’s not a lawblog.”
A fairer statement might be: An article about lawyer-run weblogs that 1) starts
off mentioning Daily Kos (saying it deals with politics), and 2) later says
law-related weblogs are ‘sometimes called blawgs’, correctly shows that there
are many kinds of weblogs written by lawyers, without trying to deal with the
impossible task of deciding which is “really a blawg” — a topic of interest only
to weblawggers.
“oilcanHNs” I think the times article was meant to be and is a puff/fluff piece.
Yes, it would have been better if Glater did more research and fact-checking
(bringing in a wider variety of examples, and maybe noticing that Legal
Underground is not mostly Evan’s “thoughts on law cases”). But, the
quotations used show that the reporter understood the main topic of the
piece — why lawyers seem to be disproportionately drawn to weblogs and
why so many of them are popular. This piece tells us virtually nothing
about how the New York Times covers the truly important issues of the day.
Trust me, lawyer-weblogs is not one of those issues.
why many lawyers (and especially law professors and law
students) have weblogs: They have access to computers
in locations where they are mostly unsupervized and can
wax weblogriful while appearing to be working, studying,
billing, researching, or being otherwise productive.
p.s. I consider Mike Cernovich’s post about the Times article
a “puff post” and a quickie. So, I’ll be back to read his more
substantial pieces at Crime & Federalism — letting him know,
of course, when he appears to be demonstrating more bias
than insight. update (Oct. 8, 2005): Mike, and the omnipresent
and eh-rascible Eh Man, respond to this post here, where I left
a very responsive Comment.
and senryu from Schenectady’s own Yu Chang:
pumpkin patch —
this one is big enough
for my son
homecoming —
standing room only
in my office
quiet water
she joins me
in silence
corporate parking lot
another starling
settles on the power line
Upstate Dim Sum: Route 9 Haiku Group (2005/I)
October 7, 2005
blawggers mug Old Gray Lady
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