Blogging Dangers?

So I'm new to the blog thing, but apparently they're making news.

Check out this little nugget of alarmist journalism:

http://www.detnews.com/2004/technology/0409/26/a01-284745.htm

This article purports to detail both positive and negative aspects of blogging. And it does, for the most part...but there is an obvious angle here. I mean, look at the title:

"Teens Spill Deep Secrets in Web Logs"

C 'mon! They may as well just call it "Another Reason Your Children May Be in Danger." The media feeds on your fear. They subsist on it. The #1 priority of the media is NOT fair and balanced reporting, it's NOT even to communicate news events clearly and accurately. The media is in business to make a profit. That's it. Any socially redeeming qualitites are purely incidental. They can and do sell fear to YOU. Hell, local news couldn't exist without it. Case in point: those panicky trailers for upcoming health segments...

"You may already be dead...details at 11."

ALSO...

I found it particularly abhorrent that Ms. Bissonnette (quoted within the article) reads her 13 year-old daughter's blogs (shame on you) and requires that they be "generic and upbeat." Umm...what? She's 13!!! Generic and upbeat??? Look, I realize safety is a concern here, but you can teach your kids about predatory internet creeps and how to avoid them WITHOUT reading their blogs or - worse yet - censoring them, replacing honesty with fatuous feelgoodism. Can you imagine?

"OK, here's an outlet for you, honey, a place that is all yours, a place where you can go and write about anything you want...provided that it is bland, innocuous, generic and upbeat." Christ. Add another mindless sheep to the herd, compliments of Ms. Bissonnette's compulsive need to keep her daughter blissfully ignorant.

Here's another winner of a quote from the aforementioned article:

>>While some educators love them as a learning environment, others balk at the writing they see on blogs, which often adopt a Web-speak that is notorious for bad grammar, poor spelling and little punctuation.<<

This is a joke, right? OK, I don't mean to trivialize the importance of sentence-level mechanics, but who - other than a pedantic dope - would ever "balk at" such a thing? If you agree AT ALL with the above statement, you have no business being an educator. The primary function of language is communication, in which most bloggers are doing a fine job. A blog is a like a journal. As an English teacher, I would never correct journals for grammar, spelling, or punctuation. These blogs are not research papers. So far as I can see, most people use them as places to rant, as places to type random thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way. Which makes them more like diaries; would you read someone's diary and correct it for mechanical errors? If you answered "yes," get your soulless uninspired ass out of the education profession.

I have more to say on this, and when I get some time and get my thoughts together, you'll get to hear it all. Try to contain your excitement.