CATHY SEIPP: Old farts vs. bloggers:

I’d say that if it takes you a month to think of an idea for a blogging post you probably shouldn’t be blogging – or maybe even reporting or editing, at least not for the sorts of salaries they pay you at the Times, where indeed you can make a nice living while being almost completely bereft of ideas. That’s why I’m less sympathetic than many at the cost-cutting standoff going on now between the Tribune Company and its sometimes bloated L.A. outpost.

But maybe that’s me, and I admit this opinion may be flavored my general prejudice against writing coaches, which Baker was at the Times and now is on a freelance basis. From his own site: “Helping you is my calling. Getting there is your job.” Oh, dear. Journalists who want to help always strike me as better suited to social work or something, and unfortunately their earnest attitudes are one of the mainstream media’s biggest problems now in dealing with the rude new world of Internet journalism. . . . Some of blogging’s important elements include: regular and frequent posting, interactivity with readers, reaction and commentary to mainstream media news, links proving one’s point, and so on. You can get away with weakness in some of these areas if others are strong enough. But some perfectly fine journalists are just not bloggers, they don’t really get the Internet, and therein lies the basic problem facing newspapers today.

Read the whole thing.