Outing Cablenewser
The New York Times has identified an anonymous blogger known as cablenewser. He’s 18 year old Brian Stelter, a student at Towson University in Baltimore, who began blogging in January and has attracted a wide following.
I’ve resisted quoting Mr. Stelter over the past few months, even though his persona has been given considerable publicity due to its views on the cable news industry. The reason I didn’t is because anonymous bloggers have no standing whatsoever in my view. I don’t care who it is or what they say. There is no place in journalism for anonymity, and I think the blogosphere is journalism.
This outing will likely hurt the public perception of blogging, because critics will use it to broadbrush the entire phenomenon. But that’s all right. We’re rebuilding the news business from the bottom up anyway.
