All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Want to share your feelings about a certain "Evening News" anchor who is making news today? You could sound off on your blog. You leave a comment below. Or you could join a group on Facebook, the social networking site that is quietly taking over the world.

There you'll find, count 'em, 67 Katie Couric-related groups to join, among them "Katie Couric is Amazing!," "Katie Couric, You Sexy Goddess, Stop Wearing Frumpy Duds!," and the mysterious "In favor of Morbo replacing Katie Couric as the CBS Evening News anchor."

Facebook used to be just for students, but now it's open to everyone, and journalists have been quick to get in on the action. One theory of why that is came from Time's Ana Marie Cox, who suggested to Howard Kurtz on "Reliable Sources" this weekend there's something slightly elitist about the site: "an imprimatur of kind of little bit of being in the know, let's say."

And then there's the fact that, unlike on many Internet sites (and rival MySpace), you have to be up-front about who you are on the site – which allows journalists to play around online without nasty, anonymous missives being lobbed in their direction. (Here's the video of the "Reliable Sources" discussion, a link to which just appeared on my Facebook page.)

There's also something profoundly silly about the whole thing, of course. Cox is my friend on Facebook – our connection, according to the site, is "You met randomly: [she] mocked him," which, to be fair, isn't that far from the truth. Today in my "newsfeed" -- a glorified list of what your compatriots are up to -- I learned that Cox "added 'The Shins' to her favorite music." In addition to posting sometimes-embarrassing pictures of themselves on the site, people can keep their friends jarringly up to date on their daily activities: One friend recently posted the pressing news that she "is playing Scrabble."

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Bloggers Beware!: Brian Stelter – the recent college grad behind one of MediaLand’s favorite sites – was just hired by the New York Times to contribute to their online and print coverage of network news. Sweet gig, right? Not so fast, says Forbes, who says that working for The Man stunts bloggers' growth!

Recruiting from the blogosphere is not without its risks--for both sides. The acquisition of blogs by big media companies can alienate the very readers they're looking to pull in. Bloggers who join the mainstream press trade freedom for a steady paycheck but could get swallowed up by the larger media brand.
Wonkette founder Ana Marie Cox and ex-Rocketboom anchor Amanda Congdon are good examples. Now that they're at Time.com and ABC.com, respectively, neither enjoys the same high profile as during her original blogging gig. It's hard to shake the impression that the traditional media banners for which they now work have blunted their insurgent charm.

While we would’ve been interesting to see how Congdon could’ve developed as a web-type commentator vloggette, Ana Maria Cox probably got off the Wonkette bus just in time. She’d done all she could with her make-your-momma blush jokes and was ready for the big time.

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