Daniel Shorr R.I.P.

Just home from work at the 1844 House, love the feel of evening breeze after 8 sweaty hours in the kitchen. If you've never worked a commercial kitchen, you don't know the heat.

So today is the YouTube 'global filming day' they've been promoting. It's a cool idea, eventually a documentary film is going to be made as sort of a day in the world recorded on film and put on YouTube. I've never posted to YouTube but I have a digital camcorder that's been gathering dust for a few months so it was a good reason to break it out. So I filmed myself walking Reggie, talking to my dad, doing laundry, driving to work, and then just now driving home from work. Exciting stuff, right?

So I submitted the 'Case Study' assignment to Sweeney earlier. Those in the class know that it's an analysis of the journalistic qualities of a particular blog. The blog is from 2005, kind of strange choice for a new media class. (hey anybody know where that anonymous guy is now or any current info? If he's still blogging I'll avoid that blog.)

Anyways thinking back on what I wrote, I was pretty brutal, not really giving the blogosphere in general a fair shake in terms of journalism.

Two recent news events may have put me in a not so generous mood to fellow bloggers. The Shirley Sherrod story this week really pissed me off; A blogger with an agenda(conservative) started a faux furor over quotes of Sherrod taken out of context. That's not suprising, although it does speak to the danger of considering blogging journalism. So you know the story, Obama fired her, and then apparently the next day got the whole story, and apologised.

And the other thing that may have tainted my mood when I wrote the assignment(should I post it here?) was the death of Daniel Shorr, a great and true journalist who I grew up hearing regularly on NPR. He worked almost to the end (I heard him just the other week) at the age of 93, and his life story is inspiring and worth checking out if your interested:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128730967

The difference between Shorr and many of the news bloggers I've read is that (one of the things I keep hearing from those who knew and worked with him) Dan Shorr never made the story about himself.

Humility and objectivity are qualities hard to find in the blogosphere.