Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Rosenbaum v Jarvis

There is a bit of a spat going on between two of the media gurus.

It started with a posting by Ron Rosenbaum at Slate Magazine in which he accused Jeff Jarvis of gloating over the death of print.

The prosecution states that Jarvis once a steward of the old media has sold out and is

living the good life
by being

the very model of a modern new-media guru


Nothing wrong with that you may think and Jarvis is a respected commentator on the new media,writing in Media Guardian,attending numerous conferences and writing a very good blog.
However now says Rosenbaum

something has changed in the last year or two: He's now visibly running for New Media Pontificator in Chief. He began treating his own thoughts as profound and epigrammatic, PowerPoint-paradoxical, new-media-mystical. He acquired the habit of proclaiming "Jarvis' Laws" of new media, acting like a prophet, a John the Baptist if not the messiah.


and furthermore

he's become increasingly heartless about the reporters, writers, and other "content providers" who have been put out on the street by the changes in the industry. Not only does he blame the victims, he denies them the right to consider themselves victims. They deserve their miserable fate—and if they don't know it, he'll tell them why at great length. Sometimes it sounds as if he's virtually dancing on their graves


Jarvis not surprisingly though replies

Sadly, Rosenbaum doesn’t debate the idea and history and fate of journalism, which might be productive or at least provocative. Instead, like a pissy third grader, he attacks me. Because of my opinion, he says he doesn’t “like” me anymore


Why have I got a feeling that this is going to run and run?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Please, no.