We note in passing that SBC Today gave up its February decision to forego user comments on its blog entries.
We argued at the time that their decision was both self-destructive and disrespectful of their readers.
User response, which in cases like that is in general to leave and stay away until you come to your senses, had its way.
SBC Today is a Southern Baptist niche blog which has called attention to itself by exiting the blogoshphere.
Specifically, it has no blogroll, it doesn't accept linkbacks and has announced that they will no longer accept comments on its posts (it was that last action which marked their exit from the blogosphere).
Wikipedia accurately describes the blogosphere:
The collective community of all blogs is known as the blogosphere. Since all blogs are on the internet by definition, they may be seen as interconnected and socially networked, through blogrolls, comments, linkbacks (refbacks, trackbacks or pingbacks) and backlinks.
Clearly, little remains for SBC Today to remove itself from even the possibility of participation in the worldwide online conversation that drives the blogosphere, except perhaps to take itself offline altogether.
We don't agree with those who say SBC Today is no longer a blog. Its entries are hyperlinked, printed in reverse chronological order and make some use of hyperlinks to outside resources. Its publication platform is blog software. So in a truly minimalist sense, and you may quarrel with us about this, even with comments off, SBC Today remains a blog.
Just not a blog which respects its readers enough to accept comments.
Too bad.
The wages of disrespect for one's readers is typically death.
Wade Burleson wrote Saturday in a blog about his differences with the Baptist Identity movement, that "the premier Baptist Identity blog, SBC Today, has chosen to terminate all comments. . . . Shame on them. . . . ."
Burleson finished by quoting one of his frequent commenters, Jim Champion, who nailed the key online issue, writing: "If I want editorials I'll go to print media."
Foreign journalists have been kept out by the Israeli military. The Guardian reports:
Throughout the two-week bombardment of the Gaza Strip most journalists have been kept out by the Israeli government on the pretext of security. And the Israelis are pleased with the results.
Foreign journalists have been forced to report without getting to the detail of what is going on. That meant, at least in the early days of the bombardment, that reporters who would have been in Gaza were instead reporting from Israeli towns and cities under fire from Hamas, and Israeli officials found it easier to get themselves in front of a television camera
Five journalists who were there when the attack began have been killed.
Israel bombed a Gaza City media building. The Committee to Protect Journalists wrote:
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked the rooftop of Al-Johara Tower, an eight-story building located in Al-Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City, which houses more than 20 international news organizations, according to multiple news outlets.
Al-Jazeera reported that at least one journalist was injured while filing a report from the roof of the building. The journalist was not immediately identified. Staff at Al-Shifa Hospital, where the journalist was taken, said the injuries were minor, according to a statement on Web site of the Iranian Arabic-language Al-Alam TV. Satellite transmission equipment on the roof of the building was also damaged in the attack, the Iranian English-language Press TV said on its Web site.
Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, defended the strike in an interview with Al-Jazeera, saying that communications equipment in the building could have been used by Hamas.
Reporters Without Borders has issued an appeal to Israel to stop preventing journalists from entering Gaza. It says in part:
In view of the scale of the military operations and the repercussion they are having throughout the world, we believe the Israeli government’s decision to exclude the press from the Gaza Strip is untenable and dangerous.
Gaza Blogroll: First-person accounts of the conflict in the Gaza Strip recommended by the Columbia Journalism Review.
Twitter search the #Gaza hash tag to follow tagged debate on twitter.
Twitter search the #israel hash tag.
Twitter search the #hammas hash tag.
Reporters Without Borders latest on media exclusion from the Gaza Strip.
Israeli human rights groups blog the impact on civilians in Gaza and in Israel.
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