Chris Allbritton, a blogging journalist who in March blogged so well readers donated enough money to send him to Iraq as an independent journalist, is still writing about Iraq, and planning to go back. I’m interested in why I enjoy his writing so much. It’s a matter of building up trust in an individual writer or reporter, which you get in traditional media too, sometimes, but I also just love the honesty of his writing. No, of course, I don’t know that he’s always completely honest, and it’s quite clear that he’s not objective (but he’s explicit about what his opinions are) but it’s the links. When he makes a statement he links to something backing it up. Mainstream newspapers online are starting to do that, but this is so much more. It’s the accountability we learn in academia (cite your sources! cite counterarguments! show people how you came to think this!) instead of the teaspooned “this is true, we promise” of professionally edited tabloids.
I'm Jill Walker Rettberg, author and professor of Digital Culture at the University of Bergen in Norway. I co-direct the Center for Digital Narrative, a 10-year Norwegian Centre of Research Excellence, and I lead the ERC project Machine Vision in Everyday Life. This site started as my blog in October 2000.
chuck
I think that what I like best about his writing is the clarity with which he expresses his opinions. While other reporters hide behind a mask of objectivity, his honesty in interpreting is something I appreciate (of course it helps that I *generally* share his interpretation of the world).