Law & Order: Special Bloggers Edition
Some time ago, a particularly vicious little blog known as Some Blogs Are Better Than Others surfaced with no apparent mission other than insulting bloggers (sometimes humorously, other times not so much). Normally, we wouldn't give two shits about blogs bitching about other blogs, but this one was remarkably nasty for a brief, bright period and then — poof! — disappeared.
Recently, the site resurfaced, its content being little more than an assault on former Spin writer Sarah Lewitinn [Disclosure: much like most people in New York, everyone at Gawker knows Sarah. She's #20 on the loathsome list, natch.]. The commenters were particularly anti-semitic and, if blogs are subject to such things, libelous. Some sensitive souls even alerted the Anti-Defamation League.
Then, thanks to the magic of IP addresses, techno-hipster sleuthing, and blog-stalking, the finger pointing began. And who is being accused of writing this nasty site?
Why, a J-school grad, of course! Kasey Doshier, Missouri School of Journalism '99, has been unceremoniously accused (and, given the rabid comments section, more or less convicted, whether she's guilty or not) as the "writer" of this site, which has single-handedly exemplified why blogs may never be taken seriously.
So why is Kasey Doshier being accused? Sheer circumstance, says Doshier, as she vehemently denies any involvement with this nastiness. The circumstance, without boring you too much, is this: An anonymous someone, in a blog's comment section, mentioned emailing Lewitinn a bunch of questions. That someone was determined to be Doshier (Doshier confirms). Lewitinn shortly thereafter received a list of questions from a random email address, and that Q & A soon appeared on the SomeBlogs site.
One might argue that the timing is a bit too coincidental; Doshier correctly argues that coincidence is not a confirmation and that her IP address is also used by her roommate, Angela Smith (who, according to Doshier, is also innocent). Doshier also notes that she lives in a large building, uses several different wifi signals, etc. At any rate, the IP addresses match up on multiple levels (more than I'll waste your time detailing here) and it's a remarkable coincidence that an email Q & A with Lewitinn was published right after Doshier mentioned emailing a Q & A to Lewitinn.
So why do you care about a bunch of bloggy finger-pointing?
1. It's a great sociological case study of When Bloggers Attack!
2. This is exactly the sort of business that leads to legal crap.
3. Everyone here is hanging out on the bottom rungs of media in some way, from Lewitinn's Spin adventure to Doshier's freelance newspaper work.
4. You hate blogs. Which is why you'd probably love SomeBlogs.