Why Does Newsweek Hate Blogger Prosperity?
Doree Shafrir has a bone to pick with Newsweek. The former Gawker editor recently scored a book deal from her blog of mom emails, and now Newsweek is asking whether she or any other blogger can even write books, much less sell them. "Many bloggers just repackage what they've already done," the magazine said, citing Gawker's book as an example. But the Gawker book did not contain any content from the site at all, so it can hardly be called "repackaged." And there are all kinds of other problems with Newsweek's blogger book slam:
It selectively mentions websites that aren't really blogs; ignores actual blogs that contradict its thesis; fails to do original reporting to check basic facts about people and comes to an easy, trite conclusion. Which is outrageous, because that sort of intellectually dishonest pontificating belongs to us bloggers, Doree's mom excluded. Seriously, Newsweek, stop it. There are only so many book deals left.
