When co-conspirator nightgrapefruit talked about being a bit bored with her blog recently - "it's not really *about* anything" - and pursuing a trash blog, I panicked. I'm down with the trash blog - I'm angling for the sr. trash reporter position - but what I like about the slight random-ness of the current incarnation of nightgrapefruit is that when she's far away, or when weeks in the busy city go by without real time meetings, I can still visit and maybe see what's up, where she's been, or what she's been thinking about. I'm not a big fan of the more exhibitionist forms of personal blogs - I have this Arendtian thing about what belongs in public and what belongs in private....but I do like how ng's blog reflects her trajectory without indulging in exhibitionist declarations that amount to TMI.
I started here wanting to take public radio to task specifically and taking the idea of objectivity in journalism to task more generally. Instead WIWITB has been an intermittent mish mash of all kinds of stuff. I like the idea that my own blog could reflect my trajectory without subjecting friends and the idly curious to the more prurient details of my private life. I'm less interested now in critiquing what I love and hate about public radio. I'm far more interested in building a critique of the idea of journalistic objectivity and collecting examples of why and how the field can and should abandon its quest for balance and do its work much much better. For one thing, it's a quixotic quest, and not in a good way. More importantly, to paraphrase what someone once said to Tucker Carlson, it's hurting America.
But, I like that wall between public, and, well, semi-private. And since there is so much media criticism out there that takes on the broad spectrum of journalism, I very much like the idea of focusing on one aspect, especially outside the overly simplified context of right v. left, or Fox v. CNN.
So, bifurcation it is to be. This semi-private place remains Whatever I Want it to Be. So if I feel like pretending that cheese grows underground like potatoes, or want to write about how I am simultaneously repelled and attracted to all the posters of ShahRukh Khan that dot my nabe, or be outraged when the Bush Administration accuses the New York Times (not my favorite paper) of treason, or review my restaurant week experience at The Mercer Kitchen, that's here.
Personal Equations will be over at:
http://personalequations.blogspot.com
and will be up and running shortly. And since it is important to have a grand ambition - nothing half-assed about it this time around - it will take on the mission of Exploding the Myth of Objectivity in Journalism. Bookmark, visit often, and comment.
