Before I get into the report swing, I can’t help but notice a trend amongst some of the early coverage of Friday’s blogging panel. There’s Library Journal‘s Michael Rogers wondering why only “legitimate reviewers” instead of those who are “basically book nerds with no chops who pound away on their PCs while their 18 cats prance in the background” were the panelists, while NY Mag’s Vulture blog (from whom we swiped the above image) claimed the audience was “firmly on the side of the bloggers.” Okay, fair point; at such panels we do tend to sit together in a cluster not unlike high school classes where the snarky children congregate in the back, but it doesn’t obscure the larger points made by moderator Bud Parr as well as Dwight Garner, Lizzie Skurnick, James Marcus and especially Anne Fernham about the silliness of this overexposed, increasingly exhausting so-called “debate” (or in Marcus’s words, the “grapeshot fired back and forth of what’s essentially a sideshow.”)
I say “especially” because Fernham, whose day job is as professor of English at Fordham University, not only put the print vs. blog “debate” in necessary historical context by referencing 18th century female novelists’ struggle for reputation and early 20th century’s belief that anonymous reviews had more power, but boiled down blogging’s advantages to six key points: cultivation of niche audiences, matching passionate readers with new voices, extending the tipping point effect, overcoming the problem of time, acting as “notebooks for feedback” and most of all, building community. I hope she publishes her remarks widely and I suspect, from the look on Garner’s face as he watched Fernham’s speech, that we may be seeing her byline in the New York Times Book Review in the not-too-distant future.
Point being, Fernham is exactly the blogger Rogers was hoping to see on the panel – someone who has a clear love of books and wants to share the enthusiasm widely. Book bloggers can be anyone and are anyone, and more often than not are a sight smarter or intellectual or informed than those who get the label “professional” or “critic” attached.
Speaking of Garner, if the NYTBR had to be represented on a blog panel, he was the right choice, explaining why blogs are a necessary part of the conversation about the future of book culture while pointing out their weaknesses (some of their criticisms can be “unfair” even as they “should make [us] uncomfortable”, and how print has the advantage of writers working with editors to strengthen their work.)
Ultimately, if the panel didn’t break new ground, it clarified current concerns, made clear when McNally-Robinson bookseller and blogger Jessica Stockton rightfully wondered “who the enemies really are.” The answer to that, espoused by the panelists, is best summarized by the words of Walt Kelly‘s cartoon strip Pogo: “we have met the enemy and the enemy is us.”