A goldmine of comments!

As one who is an amateaur and still a beginner at that, I can’t emphasize enough how intimidating it is to put a post on FDL’s front page, knowing that 3,000 or more people may not only glance at it but have the ability to immediately call me an uniformed, clueless idiot.

The “editing” functions two ways, one is via the comments, offering different insights as well as corrections, but just as important is the poster’s anticipation of the comments. I spend more time when drafting asking whether I can defend a statement than thinking about how well it’s written. And after every session, I’m always a little embarrassed. If you take it seriously, it’s either incredibly educational or incredibly humbling, and often both.”

i have never taken issue with anything you have written that i have read…………it’s all been completely correct, so have felt no need to correct it…………

all is not lost, my doctors talk in english, still………

It is a truly phenomenal media, one that nurtures the entire democratic principle

The comfortably ensconced seat-of-power MSM vs. the blogs:

“Nay” chair vs. nurture.

sorry, i was sidetracked for a while……..

yes, i have really wondered about this……my step-sister is a journalist in virginia, and i think about how media has changed since she entered into it wide-eyed in the early eighties…….

my best friend’s daughter has been involved in live journals and anything ‘net’, since the net was created, i like to think i had something to do with that, since i was an early net person…..she is 36, what she calls ‘media’ is far different from any generation proceeding her…….

everything evolves into a different form, so, what form is the media evolving into? has to be blogs…….or a form of it….the immediacy of it can’t be replicated….that is what is ‘usual’ now, what is comfortable to the generation coming up right now…….how could it not play a part?

how could their view not be affected? and the way they disseminate information, would have to include and immediate form of information, and that is the blog……

What I was trying to emphasize about this new medium is how important is the role that readers play in their comments. One of the things Jane constantly emphasizes with us is the importance of stimulating a conversation — the self-correcting and educating process itself becomes the goal — not just posting for it’s own sake. And the conversations occur not only in the comments to the post but in the reactions the post stimulates in other blogs who might link to us. And our comments bring the conversations back here. It is a truly phenomenal media, one that nurtures the entire democratic principle, and it is astonishing that anyone in the traditional 4th estate would see it as anything other than a plus — unless they have other motives.

YES! Having a place like FDL gives me so much more hope about the concept of democracy. And and I agree with you, S-crow, that the motives of some MS writers and their media are worth examining.

Laura Doty @ 118

Yes, that’s the fascinating thing. The net not only reflects a narrative, it co-creates it.

Rather like the inter-connected-ness of neurons and synapses in the living human brain….

Exactly. And with functions (memory, action) not just storyline.