5 comments

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  Seth Finkelstein

  3 years ago

  [Bah, humbug]
  
  Oh me, oh my, what would poor little voiceless General Motors ever have done before this fantasic conversation - golly gee, BL0GS RUL3Z!!!
  
  Because we know that before the greatest invention of web-infinity, the *blog*, a giant business just couldn't get heard. But now, with blogs, blogs, blogs, the gatekeepers have lost their power. It's a New Era.
  
  Don't those unhip dead-tree old-worlders "Get it"? Wow. GM PUBLISHED IT THEMSELVES! Amazing. Fantastic. Unheard-of. No megabillion-dollar megacorp could ever have that sort of power before.
  
  Shout it from the rooftops! Down with elitist priests of the old-media newspapers, and up with BIG CORPORATIONS AS THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE!!!!!!!
  
  [Bah, humbug. Bah, humbug. Bah, humbug ...]
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  Mathew Ingram

  3 years ago

  Hmmm -- was that a hint of sarcasm, Seth? I know that actually thinking about the topic doesn't fit well with your whole "bah, humbug -- blogs suck" shtick, but what would GM have done before it had a blog? Put out a press release saying the NYT wouldn't publish a letter? I doubt it. Pull its ads from the Times in protest? Hardly. Whether you like it or not, blogs do change the equation.
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  Seth Finkelstein

  3 years ago

  Mathew, seriously, I'm flabbergasted. Again, General Motors is multibillion dollar corporation. That's BILLION. ten-to-the-nine. Can you seriously assert they were powerless before the advent of the weblog?
  
  I'm at a loss. This isn't something I want to argue as a big flame-war. But seriously, rationally, what evidence could I put forth to you that would change your mind? Story-placement is bought all the time! They have friendly industry pundits who would echo their point of view, and press agents and PR people. I'm sure someone at the Wall Street Journal would have been happy to run GM's material as an Op-Ed, or work it into a story. All of this was in place in the era BB (Before Blogs).
  
  Their "blog" is not any sort of personal voice - it's part of pre-existing corporate function. You or I have nothing in common with such a blog (GM, as an entity, is not even a carbon-based lifeform! - it's a legal fiction).
  
  This particular entry irritated me, because of the cookie-cutter blog evangelism taken to such absurd heights, that scary aspect of cheerleading the interests of business flacks and portraying the very wealthy as somehow being persecuted underdogs.
  
  The change in the equation is that the flackery business is shifting around, with different gatekeepers. But the rich have always been heard, and it's ridiculous to be trumpeting the latest example as some overall ability that's never been seen before.
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• 

  Mathew Ingram

  3 years ago

  Seth, as usual you're kind of missing my point in your eagerness to make your own point. My post wasn't about how blogs have empowered GM to get its message out at all, but about how they have disempowered the Times, or at least exposed a little more of the inner workings of the newspaper to outside scrutiny and criticism. That's my point -- not that GM has somehow gotten powers it never had before.
  
  And even if I were to try and make that latter point, I think I would succeed, because all the power that GM had before to influence friendly journalists (or whatever you think they do) might have helped them get out a contrary piece to counter Friedman's, but it wouldn't have done anything to expose the internal workings of the NYT letters section, which is what I find most interesting about the whole thing.
  
  It has nothing to do with portraying GM as some kind of persecuted underdog, as you accuse me of doing. It's about how the Times has less control over the flow of information of all kinds than it used to have.
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  Seth Finkelstein

  3 years ago

  Mathew, I actually think you're missing my point. This exact same post could have appeared as a column in a GM-friendly business magazine, one which likes to bash the Times. In fact, that's basically what's happened, it appeared in a GM "house organ".
  
  When you wrote "The Letters section is no longer the only sandbox that readers (and advertisers) can play in.", that ignored that GM has had its own sandbox for decades, as well as plenty of business press sandboxes. All of which love the plotline of the biased journalist who just won't give an honest businessman a fair shake (compare: "As Tom mentions here, the Times is used to having voice, not in giving voice.")
  
  The difference now is that they have blog evangelists giving tnat old sob-story a New Era glossing.
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