Notes From My Knapsack 1-28-07
Jeff Gill

Blogging in Newsprint and Ink

During the turn of the year holidays, a number of people told me they thought
my column here in "The Booster" sounded like a blog, and asked if that was
intentional.

First, a note of explanation for those not wasting too much time on the
internet. A "blog" is short for "weblog," a regularly updated running narrative
usually filled with links that you can click to jump over to another web page
which relates to what you were talking about. Do enough clicking and linking,
and you will experience the odd rush of "surfing" the net, grazing the tops of
large reservoirs of data which, if you like, you can pause to dive down into
deeply.

Or keep skimming from ap.com to cia.gov to habitat.org to newarkadvocate.com,
dip your hand in the waters to leave a comment on a story, and surf on to
lcounty.com and on and on.

Anyhow, the answer to the question is "sort of." Since this column began in
2001, I spend much more time reading internet material, and that’s no doubt
impacted by writing style. This "platform" in real, not virtual ink, is not
handy for typing a long "url" (universal resource locator) that you can put in
your browser window with an "http" (hypertext transfer protocol) address.

When I can point you, the reader, to resources with a starter link and a few
clues that could help you use Google or Dogpile or some other search engine to
find web materials, I do.

More to the question of "is this a blog?" is the idea that it is a kind of
ongoing conversation. I don’t shy away from picking up threads and carrying
forward stories, with what I trust is enough context to keep you reading even
if you haven’t been checking each week for six years. In that sense, I am
intentionally picking up the blogger ethos.

And wrap around that my awareness, from emails y’all send me and conversations
at the grocery store, that regular readers on paper are also more voracious
consumers of all media, especially web based. The news business is shifting
rapidly, and pundits and consultants of all stripes have opinions they’d love
to sell you as fact along with various bridges and swampland (or ethanol
plants?).

My impression is not that the web is cannibalizing print newspapers ("dead
tree" media say the web-uber-hip), but that some readers are spreading out and
in fact upping their commitment, while others are drifting farther into the 379
channel wasteland. Organizations like the Gannett Corporation are trying to
figure out what readers want and where they’re going, and what ever the facts
turn out to be, the internet will be a significant part of it.

But wood pulp and ink on your fingers isn’t going to vanish. Less central to
everyone’s day, maybe, but perhaps it never was.

Next week, I’m told there will be a "new" Booster, with a format that sounds to
me like it is meant to echo and reinforce the web presence of our cousins at
the Newark Advocate and Granville Sentinel and Pataskala Standard. Larry Fugate
and I will still show up in these pages, plus lots of pictures, with the
welcome news that the pictures won’t be of us, other than the usual tiny one.

Maybe Lady will have a bigger photo.

That kind of strategy makes sense, and it won’t surprise me if someday I’m
asked to type four 150 word pieces a week to go online instead of one 700 word
column for print.

It won’t surprise me if I’m still writing "Notes From My Knapsack" another six
years from now, either.

So stay tuned, some of us will see you next week, and the rest will spread out
across the growing, changing landscape of Licking County news. And rest assured
my appreciation for you as readers is not virtual at all!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio;
reach him through the internet at knapsack77@gmail.com.