Publisher Compares Journalists to Life-Saving Surgeons; Blog-Needling Editor Takes Her Brakes off to Report It

The future belongs to bureaucratization ... in this regard the literati pursue their calling--to provide a salvo of applause to the up-and-coming powers ... with ... naiveté .... Modern bureaucracy has one characteristic which makes its "escape-proof" nature much more definite: rational specialization and training .... Wherever the modern specialized official comes to predominate, his power proves practically indestructible since the whole organization of even the most elementary want satisfaction has been tailored to the mode of operation.

- - Max Weber, Economy and Society, 1922

And so, professional journalists are specialists, which gives them a certain indestructibility in reporting. And they can rationalize their work as vital to the very health and existence of their fellow human beings, much in the same way that surgeons save lives on the operating table.

And so, the Nashville City Paper Publisher rationalizes his business via the keyboard of the Nashville Scene's large-fonted chief, who herself tends to sport a chip toward bloggers who are not on the payroll. His comparison of blogging to "citizen surgery" no doubt swirled her grindstone.

Even so, blogging is most like journalism in one way: neither can reasonably be compared to surgery. Publishers' and editors' claims to the contrary are simply either bloated exaggerations of self-importance or indications that they do not cotton to dilettante competition and they require a ridiculously strained analogy to life-saving professions.

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Many of our best hypotheses and insights are due precisely to dilettantes. The dilettante differs from the expert ... only in that he lacks a firm and reliable work procedure .... The idea is not a substitute for work; and work, in turn, cannot substitute for or compel an idea.

- - Max Weber, Science as a Vocation, 1918

And so, bloggers are no threat to the guild. The professionals are still going to make their paychecks for their writing. They will still be able to fall back on their methods and on the naiveté that comes with specialization.

Even so, let us not exaggerate the professionals' import simply because bloggers cause them to take an over-the-shoulder peek or otherwise make them a little neurotic.