Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Ouchie! They'se Hurtin' Me!


UGA journalism professor David Hazinski has responded to Athens Banner Herald editor Jim Thompson's commentary on trust and citizen journalism.

Instead of responding to this retread of his previous strawman, i.e. citizen surgeons, laced column, let us focus on one telling passage.

My question turned into an Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-ed column, which turned into what Athens Banner-Herald Editorial Page Editor Jim Thompson called a "minor firestorm in the blogosphere." He's right about that. Since writing that column, I've been called everything you can think of and many things that can be published only on the Internet.
Really? Well, since I read practically every Georgia blog daily, I was shocked, shocked I say, to realize I missed this venting of the spleens. As the great Steve Earle once said, "maybe I was off somewhere or just too high".

So let's look back at some of descriptions of Hazinski.

On this very blog he and his article were described as "hysterical" and "chicken little".

At JMacs he was accused of going "overboard".

Now I will admit there was one blog outside our little state pond who called Hazinski a "fascist".

But one has to wonder how Hazinski can sleep at night with his eyes so filled with tears from such deep, deep hurts.

But he wasn't asleep was he? He was too busy figuring a new way to spin his myopic view of the online world. Instead of continuing the conversation he started, instead of addressing the points Georgia bloggers raised, Hazinski chose to fall back on the old canard of bloggers are just a bunch of potty mouth monkeys flinging crap at the walls.

Hazinski doesn't consider me a journalist? Fine. I didn't consider him one either. He chose myth and exaggeration instead of the facts. Journalism? Guess we can add spewing fairy tales to the definition of that much debated word.

4 comments:

Rusty said...

It's not real surprising that he's espousing the virtues of official credentials considering he works for a company the sells credentialing services. I'd ignore him. He's what Howard Beale might call a shrill, shrieking fraud.

Amber Rhea said...

I read practically every Georgia blog daily

The very thought of this makes my brain freeze up.

As for David Hazinski, well, he's obviously got a lot to learn about the blogosphere. It's kind of cute, really - it's his first time being called a fascist on the internet! Now let's all take a moment of silence and reflect back on our own first moments of being called a fascist.

griftdrift said...

I probably should have clarified that I read practically every political blog. Although I read many non-political blogs. Love dem feeds!

possum said...

Griftdrift, no wonder you need to drink every Saturday with the Father of Ho-ism!