Maura Lafferty has a post about social media and criticism that focuses extensively on the quality of the content on Examiner.com and how it relates to more mainstream media outlets. At issue is the credibility of the writers themselves, and by extension the credibility of the outlet for which they write.
I wrote for a time at Examiner.com as the Kansas City Performing Arts dude, but I got tired of self-editing whatever passes for my own writing style. Whatever qualifications any particular writer may or may not have, there is at least some semblance of credibility associated with it, because I had much the same experience one of the commenters on the above article had (John Marcher). One of the pieces I wrote there was a review of the touring production of “Spring Awakening” a couple years back, and the publicity people of the production treated me as if I were an actual member of the media, which I admittedly found hilarious and somewhat disarming, if only because I’m just a dude who likes to write about music and make inappropriate references to truck stops, venereal diseases, and the Kardashians. Continue reading
