Touché!

Live blogging, like anything else, can be done well or can be done poorly.

If you’re going to do it, try to do it well.

Someone who is live blogging may occasionally have to admit to missing something that just happened. Which to me is fine; it’s an inherent limitation of live blogging. What would not be fine with me is a guess presented as fact, on the grounds that the live blog “must” be a complete representation of the event. I fear that some overzealous bloggers are more interested in the medium than in what it carries.

I liked your response! Although I didn’t have the opportunity of being there, between your blog and Steve’s description of his experience, I agree it sounds like it was a pretty bad meeting.

For Steve, your blog took an angle that he wish it hadn’t. In the end, you were validating his experience he expressed in his rant. Good report!

See, Ian, it’s not the medium.

I’m *only* interested in the liveblogging issue, and I think there is one. I wouldn’t write about a falling out between people for its own sake — especially people I don’t even know personally.

I’m anxious that reporting + comment is too much for most people — probably anyone — to be able to do all that the same time, in real time.

Excellent point about Jason Blair, though — and I don’t think this is necessarily a journalism vs. blogger issue at all.

I am not apologizing to Steve because I know of no factual errors. He says I got his comments on Weinberger wrong, but the people who were there that I asked agrees with my interpretation.

In fact, I do not believe the debate is actually about live blogging, since Steve pointed out no inaccuracies. he got a bad review and if you read what he had to say, it was the fault of me because I was typing while he was talking. It was the fault of two panelists who failed to show up. It was the fault of just about everyone but him.

It is my view that he got a bad review and should think a little longer and with less sour grapes of how he presented himself and how many people, including me perceived him to be.

Steve and I seem to have a couple of things in common. We both like Shel Holtz, one of the blogosphere’s true gentleman. We also think Chip Griffin did a great job live blogging at the conference. That doesn’t mean Chip and I have to agree on everything.

I also disagree with Shel Holtz on bloggers as journalists. I think we are different than traditional journalism. In my conference blogs, I try to report what the speaker said, tell my readers how the audience reacted and let them know what I thought of it all. If accuracy were the key criteria as Shel Holtz argued, then Jason Blair would not have lasted for more than a year inventing stories that the New York Times with all its checks and balances printed as news.

But that’s more likely with live blogging (or reporting), I think.

And in a blog environment, that’s more likely to include reaction and opinion, too, which doubles the risk.

Still in a quandary, though, because when it’s done well, it is very useful and helpful.

Right now, I think conferences should appoint qualified stenographers that write directly to the net. That would solve everyone’s problems, especially mine as I try to scribble down my notes. …Not so good for conference organisers, though.

If Shel had done as Steve suggested by taking notes and reporting on it later AND still getting it wrong, what would have been the outcome? I ask this because I really don’t think it is the medium here. It is the reporting…in this case, bad reporting (as Steve contends).

I did read both reports. Steve suggests that the second one by Chip Griffin was closer to the truth. But I think Steve inadvertently validates my point. If one of the Live Bloggers got it right and the other got it wrong, then don’t you think the jury is out in terms of Live Blogging?

Again, bad reporting is bad reporting.