However, I'm considering a move somewhere else along with a bit of "retooling" of the old blog. I don't know, maybe adding a sassy wisecracking ethnic kid or something.
Interestingly enough, despite the significant drop-off in my blogging activities I recently had a quasi-brush with Big Media in which I was to be interviewed for my perspective as a blogger. A producer from CBS named Russel I Levinton e-mailed me saying that he was working on a piece about the conflict between work and blogging, people getting fired for things they say on their blog etc., a subject on which I have absolutely no expertise, special insight, or even opinions really. For the aforementioned reasons, plus the fact that I'm not even sure I consider myself a blogger anymore, I was just going to forward the e-mail to real bloggers whom I know. But then I thought "Hey, at the very least I'm an erstwhile blogger and therefore I still love to hear the sound of my voice. Maybe I can get my URL mentioned on air and therefore have an incentive to post stuff for the new audience. And anyway, any publicity is good publicity and what else was I gonna do today." So instead, I decided that I would do the little news story (all the while complaining how silly the whole process was, natch).
So, I called Mr. Levinton back on the phone. I have no idea why he chose to e-mail me, but it immediately became clear that he didn't care if I knew anything whatsoever about the supposed topic of the piece (people getting fired for their blogs) and that I was just to be there as a generic blogger and to provide exciting action shots of a blogger typing at his keyboard. He wanted to send a crew all the way out to my place in Nassau county just to get these all-important action shots of me engaging in the exotic practice of bloggering to the internets, but when I told him I was going into the city anyway he figured out that they could get this footage (which I believe in TV news parlance is called "B-Roll") in the studio.
By this point I was embarrassingly excited about the interview. What would I say? Would I be able to steer everything to my preferred topics and away from the actual questions? Would I get any traffic to my blog out of it and would this inspire me to actually, you know, post stuff? Would they edit everything down to make me look like an idiot and would I then write angry, angry posts about how the evil "MSM" gets everything wrong and become a blog hero of the moment? The interview wasn't just for New York CBS but for a company that produces content to be distributed to CBS affiliates around the country so this was some real potential exposure here. As all this was going through my head on the LIRR train to the city I got a call from Mr. Levinton saying that he'd been pulled off the blogging story onto something else at the last minute. (The news business you know.) Well, easy come easy go and it's a good thing I was going into the city anyway.
So what have we learned about at least some parts of CBS from this little bit of "how the sausage is made" media reportage? For one thing it seems like CBS ironically is still way behind the curve on blogging. Though the original e-mail put a specific spin on this story, saying that it was about blog/work conflicts etc., it was clear from my conversations with Mr. Levinton that the piece was becoming yet another generic "What's up with these wacky interweb 'bloggers' the kids are talking about" type of effort. In short, the type of story that most major media outlets were doing 3 to 4 years ago. Secondly, some people at CBS have absolutely no idea which bloggers they should be talking to. I submit as evidence of that point the fact that they wanted to talk to me, a guy who doesn't really regularly update anymore and who has been going through a sort of slow blogging burnout over the last few months. I personally could give them the names of 10-20 people just in the NYC area who would be more representative bloggers to talk to. I wonder if they even had read my blog or anyone else's before they chose me.
Don't get me wrong though, if any major media outlets would like to film me typing at my keyboard I'd be happy to do it as long as they get the name and URL right.
(Click to Enlarge) This is my single favorite picture of me ever taken. I think it makes me look like some Truman Capote figure; all fat, decadent and foppish with my parasol for the sun (never mind that it's really a Chococat umbrella) and fan. The pissed-off expression on my face and decaying New Orleans cemetery in the background complete the effect. I guess there's some sort of Southern eccentric gay man trapped in me somewhere.
