Blogher: Three points of Controversy (Point 2)

A condensed post on controversy number 2, as I want to get to other non-Blogher related posts...

• Some comments Jay Rosen made.

• From Rox Populi's comments section, Tish G writes:

"The more insulting comment was made by Jay Rosen at the end of the session when he said we all sounded terrified. I did not get that at all. Just because we are sitting around and asking for strategies to deal with flamers and trolls, or asking questions about copyright laws, or how to protect ourselves, DOES NOT MEAN WE ARE TERRORIZED! I think Jay was trying to make some stupid freakin' political parallel that was only serving his warped viewpoint and did not convey what was really going on.

I could just smack him." (minor edits by Sour Duck)

• Debi Jones (aka Mobile Jones) responded in this comment (this time at PressThink website):

"Jay, I don't have a reporter's sensibilities for what grabs attention, but I do know a charged word when I see one. Your use of the word "terror," hung in the air like a haze obfuscating the rest of your speech. It was an unfortunate choice, as there were several at my table rolling their eyes with listening shut down by a cheap sensationalist trick at worst and a clueless pontification at best."

I agree with Jones' whole post.

• Tish G elaborates at one of her own blogs:

"It was a low blow, a kind of passive-aggressive way of putting the women in their place by telling them they sounded like a bunch of frightened Little Red Riding Hoods."

(I happened to be sitting at the table Tish G refers to, and can second her account of our responses to Jay's interpretation of Blogher.) I agree with Tish G's analysis. Looking back on it, perhaps Rosen's "joke" about coming to the conference "for the hot chicks who know how to code" (ha ha) was a sort of sexist warm-up for what was to follow.

I apologize if this comes as a sort of "I hate Jay Rosen" post; it's not. It's great that he attended and wrote about Blogher. But he took the temperature of Blogher and got it so wrong; he needs to be called on it. Thanks Mobile Jones and Tish G for doing the calling, without which this would have been a much more cautious (and bland) post.