I’ve noticed an increasing amount of bile filtering up from professional journalists towards bloggers and blogs in general.  Derisive remarks in published articles are common, especially in major newspapers.  Then a denigrating article appeared in WikiHow.com entitled:  How To Dissuade Yourself from Becoming a Blogger. It typifies the general attitude I’ve noticed.

It’s obvious to me that these professional writers are feeling threatened.  What disappoints me is that they’re not professional enough to keep it to themselves.  When I read things like this, I wonder if they have any idea they’re engaging in exactly the behavior they say they dislike about bloggers.

Here are some points that blog critics are missing:

• If blogs were all horrible, no one would read them and they wouldn’t exist.  Yet, they are thriving and many are making a very good living at it.
• Personal blogs (the ones most derided by professional journalists) are not intended for wide audiences, but for small groups of like-minded people to share in this thing called life.
• People are interested in other people.  Real people.  That’s why reality shows are so popular.  And many blogs are like reality shows but in serialized literary format.

Personally, I find cruising blogs and reading life experiences of real people far more interesting than most “professional” articles in “professional” publications.  While I don’t care for MySpace, I do surf Xanga.com daily, paying closer attention to “blogrings” which do a good job of clustering journals with common interests.  And yes, I do shy away from blogs where they tYpeZ liKeS THiz.