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Toronto Life Just Doesn't Get It
John Macfarlane doesn't get the internet. Not sure if Robert Fulford does either. In the current issue of Toronto Life - which I was interviewed for back in April - the magazine finally mentions the word blog, and then proceeds to infer, "what's the point?"
The point is that the Toronto Life editorial team should finish their croissants and head on over to catch the final two days of the Mcluhan International Festival of the Future to be reminded that the medium is the message. While there they might learn where all their readership has disappeared to, and think of hiring someone to manage their afterthought of a web site.
In Fulford's article, Blog's Age, the author waxes on about the relevance (or lack thereof) of blogs and doesn't hold back in criticizing the me-too editorial on blogs like this one and Torontoist.
And you know what? He's right. He's right that blogTO hasn't quite yet found a "voice of its own". We're working on it. He's right that we sometimes cover stuff that can be spotted in the pages of NOW, EYE, the four "local" newspapers, insane amount of free dailies or even the recycling plant full of local and international magazines that inundate us all.
But in one critical respect, he just doesn't get it. He doesn't get that he's comparing a growing medium to a declining one. He doesn't get that all the outfits that cover the "cool stuff down at the Distillery District" spread their gospel on dead trees. He doesn't get that blogs are about a completely different way to engage with a readership. Where exactly in the pages (heck, even the web sites) of Toronto Life, NOW, EYE, Dose (the list goes on) can readers further the conversation and post comments in real-time?
Of course, I tried to explain all this to Robert Fulford when he interviewed me for this article five months ago (why it took them so long to publish it is another story). I explained that the difference is not just in the content, it's in the medium. I painstakingly described what an RSS feed is and how kids these days are consuming media. I shot down his (and apparently John MacFarlane's) assertion that nobody has time to read blogs. I detailed what blogTO is all about and that we're not simply, as he puts it, an online magazine.
We talked for, like, an hour; 5 minutes of which was him advising me on how we should cover City Hall.
But where is all this in the article? Instead, Fulford quotes me from an ancient expose in Eye Weekly. He makes fun of a Torontoist post about racoons.
The sad fact is that Fulford, MacFarlane and the rest of my parent's generation that works at Toronto Life made their minds up about how they would portray the emerging Toronto blog scene before they wrote the piece. And who can blame them? How else could they grasp on to the final moments before their magazine loses its relevancy.
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Yet another example of "the man trying tio keep us down". Smacks of 50's era "Rock and Roll is the Devil!".
When I first moved here a couple years ago, I wanted to read TL - I was excited about the idea of a locally focused magazine.
And then I read it, and realized they weren't writing for me, they were writing for much older, upper upper middle class folk with a hell of a lot more disposable income than I.
All of their recommendations for things to buy, see, experience, consume, etc are only accessible to a small portion of Torontonians. And as their blog article reveals, they're too busy being obtuse and self-congratulatory to adapt and evolve and consider that there are others in the t-dot that deserve their attention.
Five months isn't an unheard of lead time for a magazine piece when the summer is wedged in between.
Good points otherwise.
1. "Lively and otherwise unavailable material can be found there"
2. Blogs "can be politically powerful and culturally influential"
3. "if the knowledge society is indeed our future, blogging is surely a clear sign of it, a case of talent replacing capital as the crucial element in the information system"
4. "...a richly promising form of communication that follows the erratic currents of private whim.."
I don't think this is evidence of being out of touch or of the man trying to keep you down. He's simply expressing an opinion as to the quality of this blog and Torontoist. Its certainly true that what i see here is not much different than what I get at NOW and eye and Toronto Life. I agree that there is not yet a distinct voice for this blog. Rather than accuse Bob of not getting blogging, your should respond to that criticism (admittedly, you acknowledge it at least), which is the only real criticism of BlogTO. Criticism of CP24 is not evidence of not getting TV. Criticism of The Transporter 2 is not evidence of not getting fim. This article is not evidence of not getting blogging.
As a reader and not a contributor, I agree with Bob. I'll keep reading, but I am also waiting for you to find a voice. Blogs are not above criticism; you don't get a free ride simply because you're on the "cutting edge". I sense more a little bit of hurt feelings for not getting heaps of praise.
If Toronto Life is so irrelevant, its views would not be so important to you and your readers. Not many other recent posts have produced as many responses. Funny that.
What I was really responding to in my post was that in his criticism of blogTO and Torontoist, he focuses purely on the content on the blogs and not the medium. That, and despite the fact he interviewed me at length for this piece, he failed to include any of what I had to say and simply quoted me from an article that appeared in Eye Weekly back in March.
I don't know what other conclusions to draw other than I didn't come up with any sound bites that fit with his preconceived vision for <em>Blog's Age</em> and how he wanted to portray blogTO.
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The other difference I see between this medium and the folks at Eye or Now is that it responds to breaking issues and stories in real-time. I like not having to wait a week or a month or whatever to get some perspective.
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The Globe and Mail has recently added a talkback feature to their online stories. Unfortunately, 60% posts are made by trolls who are more interested in attacking people than in having a conversation. I find blogs like this one generally have better netiquette than boards like the Globe's.
I read it only after your blog paid attention to the Media column. I read it in both formats: a magazine and an on-line version. We even set up a content-analysis of the "Blog's Age" which shows that blogs are about time but magazines are about money. Show me the money, Baby!
Will I still subscribe on the Toronto Life magazine? Yes, I will. Will I read BlogTO? Yes, I will. They compliment each other. Journalists are posting blogs, blogers are writing articles. Maybe next year during the third McLuhan Festival bloggers should set up a special section "Blog's Age" or/and an interactive event "I blog TO"?
Blogs are still in their infancy. It'll take time before they're off running with the so-called big boys (or maybe even outrunning them).
But I do have to say, here's hoping that other people who opened up their e-newsletters, or magazines, and read the article, decide to check out some of the blogs listed. Who knows ... they might like what they read and keep coming back!
<p>The medium is merely the facilitator: Whether you're writing for television, radio, magazine or online, it is all about the content.</p>
<p>Content is key: It is what attracts and holds the reader, listener or viewer, and it is what keeps bringing them back. It attracts investors, ad revenues, traffic, you name it. It is up to each and every one of us to take the medium in which we work, and use it to its fullest potential, and the only way we're going to do that is by finding our voice and making that content the best possible product that we can turn out.</p>
<p>I see Fulford's point, and to slag him off like he's someone's old dad who just doesn't understand is being a bit too sensitive. BlogTO is off to a good start, but it is, as some have mentioned here, still young and it does have to find its voice. That's all he's saying: Find a niche that makes people want to keep coming back. You have the potential, and if you build on that, it will happen.</p>
That said, they do what they do very well. They have a brand upon which they have attached all kinds of value, and nostalgic boomers eat it up.
But does this mean his criticism of Blogs is invalid? He is correct in saying that blogs have not yet found their voice in Toronto. Much of the content is repetitive and the original stuff is generally purile.
We are at a crossroads and even daily bloggers have no idea where it goes from here. Who could have imagined the computing power and bandwidth access we have today? Did any of us forcast this ten years ago? Five years ago?
Don't hate Fulford. He writes well and is trying valiantly to stay current. When you turn one hundred and five his efforts may seem more forgiving.
But it is interesting to note that since the time of this post we've seen the death of Dose (in print, anyway), and it's not unrealistic to suggest other papers aren't far behind. The print medium is declining. Boomers are aging. And seeing Toronto's Life's redesign of their web site, I suspect they came to the same conclusion.