A labor union for bloggers? No, no thank you. Unions are for real, actual work, not freaking blogging. Jesus, don’t inflate yourselves so much.
About
Oliver Willis
owillis@gmail.com
AIM: oliverwill
OW @ MySpace
OW @ Facebook
OW @ Flickr
OW @ XBox Live
OW @ Twitter
Read My Endorsement
National News
- "I'm An Alcoholic" Says Wonder Woman Lynda Carter
- Karl Rove To Debate John Edwards
- NBC To Buy Weather Channel
- Joey Chestnut Beats Takeru Kobayashi In Hotdog Eating Again
- Laurent Bonomo & Gabriel Ferez Murder: Killed For Playstation?
- Katy Perry Wants To Kiss Scarlett Johansson
- Cynthia Rodriguez Found A-Rod Love Note To Madonna
- Racist Senator Jesse Helms Dies At 86
- Takeru Kobayashi Vows To Regain Hot Dog Eating Competition Crown
- Gilbert Arenas Signs $111 Million Deal With Washington Wizards
Breaking News
- Republicans Face Further Senate Losses In 2008
- Hollywood Preps ?2012?, End Of Days Disaster Pic
- Pentagon Insiders Think Israel May Be Lying About Supposed Iranian Nukes
- Real Estate Key To Starbucks Closing 600 Stores
- Media Screws Up Reporting Of Obama Iraq Comments
- Wax Hitler Decapitated In Berlin
- Don?t Ask Don?t Tell Policy Affecting Military Women The Most
- Top Clinton Donors Plan Meetup With Obama
- Hilary Duff Does Cartier
- George Carlin Dead At 71
Mancyclopedia
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
I think it would be useful … if only for getting a health insurance pool. Obviously there’s not a need for a lot of other stuff.
Also Susie is a rare bird that’s becoming rarer; someone who blogs daily but doesn’t have a day job. even Duncan Black now gets paid by Media Matters; most other blogs have some institution that pays them. Susie doesn’t just want benefits like health insurance; she needs them.
Get Universal Health Care passed and that issue becomes a moot point.
“Blogging” doesn’t mean the same thing to everybody. For some people it’s just fucking around on a web site, sure, while they get paychecks someplace else.
For others, it’s a way to do real journalism, and I can’t see anybody arguing against writers or journalists forming unions, not with the shitty state of corporate news and artistic ownership these days.
Who’s to decide whose work is “real” and whose isn’t? I love your work, Oliver, but wow, do I ever disgree with you there.
A.
If someone is doing real journalism on their blog, isnt there already a journalists union they can join? A union for bloggers is like a union for computerists, that is, a union for anyone who uses a computer. A blog is a tool.
There are writers’ unions that bloggers could join, sure. An existing organization might serve the need, though I don’t know enough about any of them to say for certain.
That’s a different argument, though, than the one your post is making, which is that blogging isn’t “real work” and thus does not qualify one for union membership.
A.
Journalism is real work. Blogging isn’t.
OW, you missed the panel on the evolution of blogs. Maybe for you, it is not real work to be a blogger (since you have a good employer), but for folks like Stoller or Bowers, Taylor Marsh, and Digby, I think they may believe differently.
Sounds to me like they are looking to form a guild, not a union.
I don’t think I need to see a panel on evolution of blogs, I’ve lived the evolution of blogs.
While I’m hardly a blogger, let alone one who makes a living at it, I can see some sort of AARP type group that can get discounts on things such as computers, office supplies, travel and so forth. The only problem I see is where you draw the line on membership. Just how large or active a long-lived a blog has to be in order to qualify?
Marc Andreessen writes:
Next up: cheap, high-quality, fuel-efficient Japanese blogs take over the market.
http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/08/next-up-cheap-h.html