Forbes.com – Attack of the Blogs

October 28th, 2005

Forbes published an article called Attack of the Blogs (bugmenot.com provides a password) that was probably written after someone stepped on too many toes.

They inadvertently say so themselves (epmhasis by me)

Once blogger attacks begin, victims can resort to libel and defamation lawsuits, but “filing a libel lawsuit, the way you would against a newspaper, is like using 18th-century battlefield tactics to counter guerrilla warfare,” says David Potts, a Toronto lawyer who is writing a book on cyberlibel. “You’ll accomplish nothing and just get more ridicule.” He tells clients to find a third party to bash the bloggers

The piece is rather hostile towards blogs, most likely due to complete lack of understanding of the concept, by someone feeling seriously threatened.

Nobody is saying blogs are all good but a one sided piece like this goes against every principle of responsible journalism they claim to possess.

Steve Rubel (micropersuasion.com) is right:

They (blogs) can be a company’s greatest allies and evangelists if AND only IF we take the time to take them seriously and engage them in dialogue.

Fortune, BusinessWeek and CNN (among others) get the idea, so called journalists at Forbes most definitely don’t (shame really).
Either that or they are covering someones rear end.

What spurred me to even mention this is a paragraph towards the end of the story:

Miles, who says he misrepresented himself as Nick Tracy because “I wanted to be discreet,” has abandoned

our-street.com and moved from Oregon to Slovenia. He claims he is outside the Illinois court’s jurisdiction. The judge disagrees. Miles says he plans to appeal. He has set up a new site, scamspotting.com, and insists he is a bona fide investigative journalist: “I tell the truth, and it’s never pretty.” This drives Halpern nuts:”It’s amazing that an anonymous guy can put out a report full of lies and then be so self-righteous.”

Looks like we have a corporate pain in the ass living nearby.