Tuesday, March 25, 2003

The War on Complexity I see Dave Winer has been flying the Think! flag again recently. Almost one year ago I wrote a column about this image of the American flag underscored with the word "Think!", which Dave developed after 9/11. I thought it could serve as a banner to wave in the war on complexity. "Americans use a lot of other words to go with the flags they wave, words with meanings that come down to "Believe" or "Obey" or, simply, "Don't Think." If truth is the first casualty of war, then oversimplification has been a weapon of choice since last September." Since I wrote it, the war on complexity has only escalated. The Onion Goes To War A fairly caustic take on the news, but not as great as their post-9/11 edition. The earlier edition had a cake story, this one a pie story. Coincidence? Scooped I was getting ready to ask what the US would have done if we'd had modern reportage during previous wars, when I saw on Romenesko that I been beaten to the punch. But I think my example--the island-hopping campaign of WWII, or even specific battles within it--was better than the Star Tribune's examples of the Battle of the Bulge or the Somme--which actually were, respectively, a dangerous reversal and a bloody stalemate. The war in the Pacific, on the other hand, was a series of difficult, costly, but successful operations. 4:13:54 PM

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Real Warblogs Tired of instant pundits hawkishly bloviating on their so-called warblogs? US troops and residents of Baghdad are producing stuff that's a bit more compelling than the remasticated arguments offered by the drugstore cowboys. But not everyone gets it yet. "Curiously, unlike the military, traditional media outlets have been trying to quash their personnel's blogging efforts," says the WSJ on its second-section front page. CNN justified silencing the weblog of reporter Kevin (they shut down my) Sites by claiming, "Covering a war for CNN ... is a full-time job." Poor CNN. They waste their time trying to out-Fox the competition with stirring music and cheerleading style, but they squander a real asset. Writing a weblog helps journalists do their jobs better. Intellectual capital is not infinite, but for a reporter, writing a weblog is more like lighting a candle from another candle than it is like pouring water out of a pitcher. 10:32:26 AM

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© Copyright 2003 Ed Cone.