The life of an itinerant technologist means that I spend a good amount of time circumnavigating our local highways and roads. Most of the time, I switch back and forth between WTOP and WTWP, the Post’s new radio station. I can take or leave their morning and early afternoon crew, but I generally find Bob Kur to be an interesting host, and so I tune in. Sadly, he’s somewhere else in the rotation and local hack Bob Levey is in his place.
I was surprised when Bob Levey brought on Howard Kurtz to talk about today’s article on YouTube, as I’m pretty sure the closest that Levey gets to a computer is asking his secretary to dictate an email. Kurtz had some interesting points, but they were often obscured by Levey’s pet project to pooh-pooh the blog as a whole, and of course, those of us who enjoy blogging and find it to be a good alternative to the media.
What surprised me most, though, was that Levey wasn’t taking phonecalls. I punched in the number, pressed one to get connected to the studio, only to get the “We’re not taking phonecalls right now. Please hang up and try back later.” Odd. Wonder if they’re working on the lines?
As Levey had Gene Weingarten (I think Updated 23 July 11pm: It was Gene Robinson.) on to talk about Ken Lay Lives and several other related sites that are crafting excellent humor content out of Ken Lay’s death. To which Levey says, “Don’t they have anything better to do?”
Don’t they have anything better to do?!
One could have said the same thing about our own media’s genesis. Yellow Journalism. All manner of scandals of time gone by. Didn’t they have anything better to do than bother people?
That’s when I lost it and called the radio station, a little ticked off at Levey who just doesn’t understand why blogging is even necessary. Dan Rather could tell you. So could Trent Lott. Even Howard Dean could give you a good reason why sites like YouTube and Google Video are interesting and important. But Levey can’t see that, and he won’t let people debate with him who aren’t other journalists, apparently.
It’s a pity he’s such a coward, because I think MBDC, DCist and Freeride, plus even the Post bloggers, could teach Levey a real lesson about blogging.
But he’ll just hide instead.
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.
