This much is certain:
'blog' rhymes with 'fog'
James Sunshine is a friend and former colleague. We worked together for many years at the Providence Journal. He eventually became deputy executive editor, I was the managing editor of the features department.

This put us on opposite sides of a journalistic gap – Jim was interested in hard news and had little interest in lifestyle and entertainment stories; I represented the Journal’s soft news sections (which earned me the little-used nickname: “Squish”).

We’re both retired and officially designated as old farts ... or fossils. Take your pick. He returned to Ohio, taking up residence in Oberlin, where he went to college way back when; I moved to Bluffton, South Carolina, to help my wife care for her widowed mother. I keep myself busy with this website, which means I spend a lot of time at my computer and online.

That’s how I discovered that my old pal Jim Sunshine is still stirring things up. And he’s doing it the way he always has – by asking simple, obvious questions. The problem with Jim’s questions is they often seem too simple, which leads people to assume the man knows nothing about the subject at hand.

This is partly Jim’s fault because he enjoys tweaking people. When it’s obvous his wording has been misunderstood, he often chooses to pursue the argument that follows rather than clarify his question.

For example, Jim might ask, “Why do you call this a sphere?” And folks answer by defining the object, missing the real purpose of the question ... which is to determine how people differentiate between a sphere and a ball. As in, for the past 50 years we have called this a ball, but now you’re calling it a sphere ... why?

I BELIEVE IT was in that spirit that Jim raised a question in response to a New York Times feature called “The Public Editor” by Clark Hoyt. On May 28, 2010, Hoyt’s column, headlined “A Private Room With a Narrow View,” provided background on a piece written by Times reporter Corey Kilgannon about jazz musician Hank Jones, who had died earlier that month.

Kilgannon’s piece appeared on something called the City Room blog. Therein lies the matter that prompted Sunshine’s response. Over the years Jim and I had many loud and silly debates that disrupted the workplace, so I am well aware of the man’s ability to touch a nerve. However, in this case I side with Jim ... because nowhere in Hoyt’s column – indeed, nowhere in any of the subsequent online pieces that ridiculed Sunshine – was there an explanation of why anyone uses the word “blog.” Mind you, it makes no difference how you trace the origin of the word; the point here is why a newspaper uses it to define certain stories. We're not splitting hairs, simply trying to determine whether there's a certain logic to the distinction. Apparently there isn't.

Everything about the way reporter Kilgannon went about gathering information for his piece about Jones – from contacting the dead man’s landlord to entering the 12-foot-by-12-foot bedroom where Jones lived – was typical, old-fashioned journalism, right down to negative reactions expressed by some friends and family of Jones after the piece was published.

Throughout Hoyt’s column, however, this story was referred to as a “blog” or a “blog post.” There was some explanation of how the Times handles these things called “blogs,” but there was no explanation – there never is – of what differentiates a “blog” from a “story” that is transmitted to the newspaper in similar fashion.

SO, ON MAY 30, Jim Sunshine sent this to Clark Hoyt:

“Your column left mostly unanswered several questions that really should be addressed before we go much further into the swamp of online ‘journalism.’ It dealt with the standards of blogs, as though we all agreed on what a blog is and is not. I spent 45 years at The Providence Journal, and I still do not understand them. Nor do I like them.

“Is a blog merely the private thoughts of the blogger, who has been given the privilege of saying what he happens to think at the moment without a qualified editor passing judgment on it for accuracy, taste, appropriateness and so on?

“Or is a blog a short news story published online? Your column suggests that it is, and that it is edited by an editor like anything else approved for publication in the paper and must meet Times standards. If that is the case, why call it a blog (whatever that is supposed to mean)? Why not call it a news story? Must everything we do be a matter of clever marketing?

“I think we would all benefit if we just dropped the word ‘blog’ and went back to simply putting out the newspaper, which we used to know how to do.”

FOLKS FROM several websites – who for all I know consider themselves bloggers – pretty much summarized Jim’s remarks this way: Geezer asks, “What’s a blog?”

Which was further from the target than Christopher Columbus’s first voyage. I found it interesting that no one, not even any representative from the New York Times, could or would answer the question. I suspect they didn’t even understand it. If so, that’s very, very sad.

Instead they attacked the person who had asked it, making the false assumption Jim Sunshine doesn’t know how online journalism works.

He does know, believe me. He kept himself abreast of technological changes and encouraged the rest of us to do the same. As a former Providence Journal editor, he is familiar with the CueCat fiasco. If this doesn’t ring a bell, then you aren’t acquainted with one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of online journalism, as it pertains to newspapers.

THUS IT WAS amusing to read responses to Jim’s question. They came from folks who seem to consider themselves journalists in the best tradition of those who preceded them, but cling to a technology and terminology that sets them apart.

We accept that some change is inevitable. But when typewriters replaced hand-written stories this didn’t signal the dawn of a new journalism. Neither did the introduction of electric typewriters and personal computers. Cold type changed the way newspapers were published, but it didn’t change journalism ... because journalism is journalism is journalism ... whether you print it, broadcast it or circulate it online. And I'm not even talking about "good journalism," whatever that is. If you want a better perspective on where we are early in the 21st Century, I suggest you read newspapers from early in the 20th Century. A wonderful source: http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html

What you'll find are a lot of stories that have absolutely no basis in fact, published by newspapers that didn't feel it necessary to print corrections. Some of them were "bully pulpits," an expression that will be mentioned again later. When I bury myself in newspapers from the early 1900s I often feel like I'm reading today's websites.

BUT I DIGRESS. To clutter journalism with jibberish is unnecessary. And “blog” is jibberish. I wouldn’t call it “clever marketing,” the way Jim did, but certainly marketing is involved. I can understand why personal websites, such as this one, might want to distance themselves from what some folks laughingly call “mainstream journalism,” but I'm annoyed with newspapers that seek survival by referring to certain stories as “blogs” merely in an attempt to fit in with the ever-growing crowd that rejects print journalism. ("Hey, look at us. We're hip!")

Survival was at the heart of the CueCat experiment, which failed for many reasons. In short, no one accepted the idea of scanning bar codes on a newspaper page to negotiate sites online. (One problem never addressed was how editors should select sites to be coded. A similar problem exists today on websites which, in trying to be helpful to readers, establish links with other sites that can further explain certain subjects. Constant vigilance must thereafter be maintained to insure that these links remain active and on point. Otherwise your web page may, in a matter of days, start sending readers to nowhere in particular. I know ... because I’ve been guilty of that myself, several times.)

A RESPONSE to Sunshine on acciaccature.wordpress.com included this line: “Every week, I seem to come across a new, unmediated, wonderful blog, delving into some subject I have always longed to know more about.”

Fine, but the question remains: Why do you use the word “blog”? If someone spent years researching a subject, but found no publisher for his article and wound up posting it on a website, would this no longer be a book or a magazine article but instead be labeled a “blog” even if it required multiple pages? It’s a simple question, but no one seems to have an answer.

What I suspect is that Jim Sunshine and like-minded individuals are way ahead of the curve. That is, they accept the idea that books exist online, and that they remain books, not electronic books, or online books or whatever else people may be calling them. Changing the technology doesn't necessarily mean everything affected by that technology has to be re-labeled.

Okay, I understand why small websites, many of them one-person operations (like this one), use the word “blog.” Among other things, the word announces, “Reader beware! The following may be completely useless. There may not be a grain of truth in it. This is my story and I'm sticking with it!” This is an accurate description of the bargain basement blogs that far outnumber those that can, in any way, be considered journalism.

(To me, nothing on this website is a "blog." The title of this column is a joke. A silly joke, but a joke.)

YOU WOULD think newspapers would distance themselves from a label that so often is a synonym for "worthless." Jim Sunshine raised his question not because he doesn’t understand “blog,” but because he understands it all too well.

Someone poked fun at Jim for using the phrase “the swamp of online ‘journalism.’” Again, the point was missed. For those, such as myself, who maintain websites with no expectation of generating income or making a living from them, there is no swamp. Hell, if the internet disappeared tomorrow, I’d look back fondly on the experience as something that helped preserve my sanity during retirement. In the meantime I crank out stories as I please, tinker with the design, have all kinds of fun.

But for print newspapers who see online journalism as the key to survival, well, they very definitely have entered a swamp, uncharted territory where the footing is uncertain and the alligators are everywhere looking for a free meal. People who have their own websites may like to think they’re standing side by side with professional journalists, but most of the former have nothing at stake. We're like the thousands of people who run unnoticed way behind the pack in the Boston Marathon and think this somehow is a validating experience.

SUNSHINE'S QUESTION also brought a response from Jordan Steves, who apparently lives in Chautauqua, New York, and had his say on a webpage entitled THE ELITIST. I really appreciated how Steves defined "sweeping generalizations" in a piece he headlined “An old geezer, journalism and ignorance”:

“Do you get tired of older people offering sweeping generalizations regarding our generation? I sure do. I’m sick of hearing that we’re all lazy (really, I can’t think of a single friend I would regard as “lazy”) and that our music is crap (sure, Top 40 radio is mostly awful, but try digging a little deeper).

“Today, my disgust is directed at a man named James Sunshine, apparently a former editor at The Providence Journal, who wrote a letter to The New York Times’ public editor, Clark Hoyt. In the letter, written in response to Hoyt’s May 30 column, a crotchety Mr. Sunshine bristles at the idea of a ‘blog.’”

Obviously, Jordan Steves is clueless. Jim Sunshine bristled at the use of the word “blog.” He asked the difference between items labeled “blogs” and those labeled “stories.” I can’t understand why more folks aren’t similarly curious.

(And Jordan – every generation criticizes the ones that follow. Suck it up. Someday you'll be doing it yourself.)

ON A SITE called “byline: lene johansen” was a piece headlined “Advice for the old media rear guard.”

Johansen skirted the basic question, instead offered lessons for “old geezers and geezettes.” The first five words of the first lesson made it obvious Jahansen lives on a distant planet: “The bully pulpit is dead.”

Actually, thanks to online journalism (and cable television), bully pulpits are thriving. Hell, multiplying.

Lesson two is equally hilarious: “No one listens just because you are top tier media any more. They listen if you produce great reporting.”

Yes, the proof can be found at Fox News.

OH, I DID LIKE the Johansen comment that “New media is fun. It lets you interact with your audience, which can be scary, frustrating and exhilarating at the same time.”

I, too, find the new media fun. I admit I didn't always feel this way. Fifteen years ago or so, a lot of us thought the online version of the Providence Journal (projo.com) was a waste of time. We were slow to give it the respect and support it deserves. Now I believe it may well be the key to the newspaper’s survival. Online newspapers could, with some imagination and enterprise, be very exciting and successful.

But the part of Johansen’s comment that said "(new media) lets you interact with your audience"? Well, that’s pure BS. Because this was truer long ago in the old media, starting soon after the invention of the telephone. If anything, online journalism has established a buffer between the reporter and audience. Talking to someone over the phone is a lot scarier than reading an email, instant message or one of those texts that looks like an eyechart.

I answered the phone in an otherwise empty Syracuse Herald-Journal newsroom in 1960 and the man on the other end shouted, “I’m coming down to your office right now and I’m going to shoot the first person I see!” Turned out he never showed up, but when he called he'd sounded grimly serious.

Johansen concluded, “Please note that my use of geezer and geezette is not a reference to age, only a particular media frame of mind. There are plenty of savvy media people with half a century worth of reporting behind them, but they stay interested and in touch with the world around them.”

Obviously, Jim Sunshine is not a geezer because at age 86 he certainly remains in touch with the world around him. And then some. It’s not his fault that some people have their heads buried so deep in gobbleddygook and buzzwords that they cannot understand some basic language and one simple question.