Rav Casley Gera’s Blog

The Chandra Levy series, on Page 1 for 13 days, has provoked these kinds of comments: Lurid! Appalling! A waste of time! And these: Fascinating! Totally hooked! Riveting!

No investigation in my 2 1/2 years here has provoked such sharply opposing reader comment as the series on the seven-year-old unsolved murder of the Washington intern, who was having an affair with a congressman.

All but two of the approximately 75 readers who called or wrote to me were critical of the project; by Friday, in the online comments posted with stories, critics outnumbered fans about 410 to 70.

Yet it was clear from e-mails to the reporters — Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham and Sylvia Moreno — that many readers were engrossed. The series was phenomenally popular online, outpacing other recent investigative series. And, for the first time, Post reporters engaged with readers in an online dialogue through a daily Reporter’s Notebook; the comments (more than 500, but with many repeaters) were mostly positive.

- Washinton Post reader’s ombudsman Deborah Howell

I’ll stay out of the row over whether the 13-part epic was a wise or worthwhile move for the WaPo, largely because I can’t be bothered to trawl through the whole thing myself. But the description of the tone of the comments is instructive. From the comments on the piece itself, you’d think it was a disaster. But the comments on the reporter’s log were nicer, and those via email glowing.

The lesson? Knee-jerk comments are almost always nasty. Casual readers won’t generally bother to comment to say how much they liked a story or agreed with its view; only the enraged are engaged enough to click. Those who really like it are more likely to email in their praise. It’s sad, but most of us feel more comfortable slating something online - which makes us feel superior - than praising it, which feels a bit like weakness. If we have something nice to say, we prefer to say it in private.

Bloggers depressed at epic posts that generate nothing but sneering comments, take heart!

I know, but seriously, the papers are just shit. Here’s a cracker from the New York Times, “reporting” on the deaths of two bloggers from heart attacks:

To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.

Right. Possibly because the fucking New York Times rang them up and asked them whether the deaths of their friends had them thinking about the dangers of their work style. I also like the way they describe one’s death of a heart attack and the other’s being from a coronary. Because, you know, they’re not exactly the same thing or anything.

Prize of the day, though, goes to Metro. Ah, god bless London’s shitty freesheets. Thanks to the gossip page, for “informing” us that Mariah Carey has dismissed rumours she spent a fortune on doughnuts, saying, “my trainer would hunt me down.”

The source for this minor revelation? An interview with the nutter herself? Cribbed from some obscure US showbiz blog, even? No. She said it on last week’s The Friday Night Project. On Channel 4. Watched by at least, ooh, several million people.

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I got a little angry at friend of mine. Let’s call her, for the sake of example, Mandy Davis. Not a close friend, it’s fair to say: someone I’ve done a couple of film projects with, nothing major. Possibly she’ll invite me to the party, but definitely not to the actual wedding. That sort of thing. But a nice, friendly, fun person, not someone I’d expect to get annoyed with. [Read more →]

In our double-speed age, when the most staid, pinstriped executive salivates over the latest iPod, hot trends shoot all the way up from the underground to the mainstream with dazzling speed. YouTube was only founded in early 2005, but by late 2006 it had not only made its founders multimillionaires, but had put a new buzzword - “web 2.o” - onto the front pages of the developed world’s traditional media. By now, you probably know what it means - an internet created, shaped and filled by us, the user. In a genuine stroke of genius, the folks at Time magazine - at its best, the perfect yardstick of the most forward-thinking end of the American mainstream - declared its Man Or Woman of the Year for 2006 to be “you” - or rather, us. [Read more →]

In a faraway domain, a fragile democracy is fighting for survival. Everyday we watch on our screens it struggles to maintain order amongst chaos and defend its day-to-day operations against dissent and malicious attacks. What? No, not Iraq! I’m talking about Wikipedia.

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So I got into a couple of arguments over Guardian leaders, over, of all things, the BBC and (less of a shock) international development policy.

I still think it’s very wierd that the world’s second-most popular online newspaper lets any user place unmoderated comments straight on the webpage of its leader articles, but it’s kind of fun, too…