Well the local bloggers seem to be a slightly exclusive group. There are a lot of blogs out there...more than I realized, more than we can see in the ten or fifteen most well known.
I'm just discovering the various bloggers in town and came across "State of the Line" earlier today and linked to it immediately. Well wired, well placed, well written. Their main story this week though, was about Ink. What the hell's Ink? says this out-of-touch guy who watches too much CNN. Well here's what the "State of the Line" wrote about the KC Star's newest, trendiest magazine and online effort:
INK SUCKS: Reason ONE
We hoped they would provide good arts coverage, the occasional trend piece, maybe shed some light on uncovered subjects in KC. Even the social networking basis for the accompanying site piqued our interest. We thought it would provide a new, interactive dimension for KC media.
We were wrong.
Ink quickly revealed itself as little more than a newspaper fluff piece writ large, dealing almost exclusively in soft profiles of mundane twentysomethings and non-articles on local near-trends. Their arts coverage was mainstream and dull; photos always trumped text. More troubling, though, was the blatant emphasis on self-indulgence.INK SUCKS: Reason TWO
But it’s Ink’s attempt at an edgy, ironic tone that ranks first among offenses. The faux-subversive, kids-taking-over-the-house tone they attempt to construct strikes us as intrinsically false. Ink is the product of a monolithic corporation, and posing as a hip, independent journal rings rather hollow. There is nothing being critiqued or satirized within the pages of Ink; no positions are taken beyond milquetoast endorsements of mainstream cultural flavors.
The innovators have lost their dance!
Hmmm. Everyone is quick to promote themselves in the media world (our exclusive this, the only live and local that, we won this award, I have great sources, yada yada.) So I personally have no problem with something new, something started with some fanfare, and something with more of a blog flavor hitting the press. Lord knows, the traditional papers haven't been doing so hot. The local slick paper mags probably never get picked up off the coffee table because they're so boring. And since Myspace and Facebook are so big, well it's a style that's hot and people are going to copy it.
And all this naughty twenty-something stuff? Well, it's just the group coming up as the age group behind the Sex in the City crowd. Here they cum. (Well, they could stand to have a bit more taste.)
All those reasons State-of-the Line criticized them for are exactly why this old fart LIKES INK and will keep reading it until I find a reason not to. Ya know, no one gets to keep exclusive license on a hot trend that turns mainstream. Blogging's gone mainstream so not to be surprised the media conglomerates get into it along with everyone else!
I remember how we boomers felt when we loved the Twist... and then the adults picked up on it, took it to NY's Peppermint Lounge and then our parents started doing it to stay youthful! (View to the left...adults learning our dance!)Jeez, we were PISSED! Now Google's turned blogging into something you can do on your desktop! The innovators have lost their dance!
Bloglisted or blacklisted?
Funny...it's a heck of an effort going on over there at the Star, this INK thing. Funny also that as of this writing, I couldn't find any of the established bloggers LINKING to them. Here they are.
INK ON PAPER
INK BLOGS
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