Sunday, September 1, 2019

Entry #1: Digging into other blogs

It may very well be hypocritical to say, but I have never been one to enjoy most blogs.
All too often, they are the same forms of propaganda that push an agenda, rather than effectively deliver important information.

To show why, I will be "reviewing", so to speak, other blogs of various context.

To begin with the most popular blog site (As of August, 2019), The Huffington Post
https://www.huffpost.com/

Firstly, to identify the blog as any one category of "professional" "corporate" "personal", etc. would be inconsistent at best. With so many writers for one blog, there are many articles that follow a proper professional tone, many more that follow the "casual/professional" category, as does mine, but still so many that follow a personal tone.

Scrolling through a site like this tends to give me a sort of emotional whiplash. They push dozens of topically relevant articles, which itself is fine, but then you're cascaded with divisive politics about gun control, immigration, or freedom of speech, only to be bombarded with the Amazon rain forest's burning, then: Wacky 250 pigs bust out of enclosure and cause shenanigans! Only to return to the likes of "politics blamed for mass shootings".

Some would argue, and I would agree, that such a diverse collection of information would be good for a news blog like The Huffington Post, but in doing so, it eliminates the existence of a core theme apart from the aforementioned divisive politics, and with dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of journalists writing articles for one site, it can create a very exclusive audience.


Next, Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com

Starting with the "Tech" tab, we can see many articles involving technology, to be sure, but right off the bat, we see many, many titles that connect vague themes of technology to politics. They barely try hide their obvious opinions of political figures. To its credit, beyond the eye-catching titles, the articles seem to adhere to a much more professional, objective tone. Most of my complaints are to the tune of the above comments on The Huffington Post, albeit to a far lesser extent. Not much more to say on that front.


Last, and possibly by a great bias, not least, the "Nerd's News" site, Kotaku
https://kotaku.com/

As I said, my enjoyment of the Kotaku site is certainly biased, although that doesn't take away from the fact that the issues I had with The Huffington Post and Business Insider are next to non-existent here. The tone of writing is far closer to a personal style, but still remains a more professional air. Articles span the likes of "I loved X while playing Y" and "Interesting facts about Z". In a breath of fresh air, instead of annoyingly political titles, I see titles like "Brand new Halo action figures", or "New Joker movie shows promise despite fan apprehension", to paraphrase.

As a gaming-centric blog, there is a more traditional game review tab that displays the top 12 games for a given console. Concise, it details a quick summary of a game, and has a pros-and-cons bit that accentuates who would or wouldn't enjoy the game based on their expectations for said game.



In the end, my general opinion on most blogs has not changed, however, I urge others to Dig Deeper when reading articles. If the article is supposed to have a professional, objective tone, try to see if you can determine the author's opinions and if they affect the author's final judgments. If you can, chances are they may be acting on some ulterior motive.

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