Hey ... I’m a writer. In 2013, can’t we find a better word than “blogger?”
Outfits like Patch are fortunate to make money -- or at least try to make money -- on the backs of people interested in tackling important topics in their communities, and willing to do so for free.
It’s OK if you don’t pay me. I’d do this anyway. Truth be told, it feeds some regrettable narcissistic trait and pathetic hankering-after-past-glory in me.
But being labeled a blogger puts serious and diligent non-paid contributors, whatever their motivations, in league, by association, with a whole galaxy of crackpots, lightweights and incompetents.
You know, the only real differences between me and the Post-Gazette’s Reg Henry is (1) I write better; (2) I’m better-looking; (3) Reg gets paid and shows up on paper as well as on-line.
Sorry, Reg ... just my little joke.
Seriously, though, has there ever been a more unfortunate neologism than “blog?” An artless contraction of “web” and “log,” blog is one of those things that slithered into awareness in the digital era when geeky IT professionals began to lay hands on publishing.
And like its near-homonym “blob,” the blog oozes into every corner of awareness, smooshing together facts, with opinions, with wishful thinking, with Facebook-worthy navel gazing, and a host of other forms of human expression.
There are millions of words out there. Can’t those of us in the word business do a little better for our own?
