Comments on: Are Bloggers Parasites?

By: Writing (for Blogs, etc.): And How Not to Bore Readers | The Moderate Voice

Writing (for Blogs, etc.): And How Not to Bore Readers | The Moderate Voice — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 03:42:03 +0000

[...] To read my earlier post on bloggers please click here… [...]

By: DLS

DLS — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:23:46 +0000

No, they are not. Many of them are childish and self-absorbed, but they are not parasites.

The most interesting side note I’ve seen on this thread is the following:

> Bloggers are parasites in the same way
> that MSM editorials are parasitic.

Blogs are not about news, despite what anyone claims. They are about opinion.

By: dymphna

dymphna — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 21:11:00 +0000

Bloggers are parasites in the same way that MSM editorials are parasitic. The editors react to whatever is in the news (in many cases, whatever they *permit* to be in the news) by writing commentary…or, as some would say (not I, of course), by spewing forth from Mount Journalism their ill-informed and narrow opinions…

News Flash: we’re all parasites. That’s called interdependency. Welcomoe to the food chain, everyone.

By: Sissy Willis

Sissy Willis — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:15:50 +0000

Nicholas Carr's got the right argument re how bloggers ingest and recycle MSM droppings, but the wrong word. A person who lives by amusing the rich

By: Martin Lindeskog

Martin Lindeskog — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:18:20 +0000

Most bloggers are not parasites, instead they are productive individuals who create valuable posts. Of course the mainstream media is often a good starting point and source for a blog post. Here are two of my posts that could be of interest:

Why do I blog?

http://egoist.blogspot.com/2005/08/open-thread-post-instalanche-trip.html

Interview with Allen Forkum of Cox & Forkum. (See above cartoon.)

http://egoist.blogspot.com/2006/05/interview-with-allen-forkum.html

All the Best,

Martin Lindeskog – American in spirit.
Gothenburg, Sweden.

By: Sissy Willis

Sissy Willis — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:16:27 +0000

Bloggers are not the parasites but rather the parasite slayers, analogous to sex itself, as Glenn Reynolds has written in his scholarly legal essay “Is democracy like sex?”:

“I have chosen as an analogy or metaphor another widely criticized and misunderstood institution — sex. In short, some discoveries resulting from the application of complexity theory to the question of evolutionary fitness among biological systems have important implications for our discussion of the fitness of the body politic. Both kinds of systems face a similar problem — maintaining a balance between adaptability and stability on the one hand, while resisting parasitism on the other. In essence, democracy can be viewed as serving the same function in political systems that sex serves for biological systems — enhancing resistance to parasites.”

http://sisu.typepad.com/sisu/2005/10/i_believe_that_.html

By: domajot

domajot — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 14:16:16 +0000

Yes, bloggers are parasites, and I’m glad.

I use blogs like an index.
I get a notion of what’s out there without having to buy and read every single newspaper and magazine published.

The staff cuts in newspaper offices are a worry, though. Without good investigative reporting by print media, what will you blog about?