What Have I Ever Done to S.J. Barlament?

S.J. Barlament made a post yesterday up at his blog on Madison.com's Post which linked to something I'd written. Mr. Barlament described the post in question as being speculative of whether or not the Post section has "enough quality content to fill a print edition". I just want to say that Mr. Barlament is wrong. At no point in my words to which he refers do I speculate on the Post's ability to fill a print edition with quality material. I quote Bill Lueders who seems to think not but his thoughts are his own.

I will, however, take time right now and tell y'all what I think about this latest publication by Capital Newspapers – I don't think much of it because it hasn't been published yet. The last such venture was CoreWeekly and I have to admit that I thought relatively little of it. Every other issue had something of interest to me. Then again, CoreWeekly wasn't aimed at me, it was aimed at hipsters 10-15 years younger. It's like when I go to Chicago and grab a Red Eye. I'll shuffle through a few pages and wish I'd bought a Tribune. With CoreWeekly, I'd page through an issue and wish Madison had a decent newspaper. I mean, we've got a world-class university here and half the cab drivers in town have PhDs, so why can't we have a newspaper written at something beyond the 4th grade level? And why does the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have superior coverage of state politics when it all goes down right in the backyard of the WSJ and TCT? At least that philistine Sunny Schubert is gone.

As soon as the rumors of this new publication started floating around, the aforementioned Bill Lueders of Isthmus fired the first volley (scroll down) and now folks at Isthmus and Post are engaged in a pissing match over who can wield the better blogger. Post, The Dailypage, and Dane101 are the main blog aggregators for the Madison area and each has its strengths and weaknesses and each has bloggers who write for the webpage in addition to listings of unaffiliated bloggers. Here's my quick take on each:

Post – I read 2 or 3 folks there on a fairly regular basis but, for the most part, the blogs there just don't interest me.

The Dailypage – Some interesting stuff here too but not in abundance, for my taste. The blog aggregator, Madison Miscellany, is nice but all-too often bogged down with press releases from the Madison Police Department and the UW.

Dane101 – Dane101 is quite egalitarian as, if you live in Dane county and have a blog, you're welcome there. But the name should probably be Madison101 as folks in places like Cambridge and Paoli are likely to feel left out.

The one thing that all three pages could work on, in my humble opinion, is in recognizing good blogging even if a post isn't about Madison. I have read many a great post by a local that doesn't get listed at the above because Madison is not the focus. It would be nice if good writing by locals was given recognition regardless of the subject matter.

We'll have to wait until next week to see if this new publication is any good. If it's just going to be blogs in print, then I have to ask what the point is. The immediacy of the Internet is lost. Two of the defining features of blogs are gone: the ability to comment and use hyperlinks. But, if it is to feature Post bloggers and others writing longer pieces, then there's potential.