Now that we're on the grammatical tip, are you discussing smarmy or swarmy ? The reference presented discusses the term smarmy, yet you refer to swarmy ?
Since this is a domaining forum:
smarmy is taken in most of the major TLDs, yet swarmy is only gone in the .com TLD and was dropped in the .net one.
Rob, in before the lock...
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No matter what you write about, not everyone will agree with you. As far as I know, other than Saddam Hussein, no one has ever gotten 100% of the vote. It goes with the territory, so you accept that or stop writing what you believe.I do indeed, and unfortunately when I was on the air a lot of people used that option.
It's Sunday morning - a good time for a Sunday newspaper kind of post refelecting on this issue.
Broe-foe is not the first person who has gotten upset with someone and wanted me to tear the subject of their ire a new sphincter. However before anyone publicly criticizes someone or charges them with malfeasance, criminaility, failing to brush after a meal - whatever the case may be, that writer would have to do days, weeks and possibly even months of digging on that single issue to try to find out who is telling the truth before they could go public. After all of that they might find that the person making the complaint was the one in the wrong and the whole exercise was a waste of time. It takes a highly specialized kind of professional (not to mention a glutton for punishment) to take on that kind of drudgery.
I think this is the root of the problem - some people don't understand that the field of journalism and writing in general is, like most professions, sub-divided into many specialties and there are very few practicioners who cross the boundaries that separate those areas of expertise (just as you would not find a gynecologist doing heart surgery). There are general assignment reporters, feature writers, columnists (who write opinion pieces), investigative reporters, etc - and never the twain shall meet.
I spent most of my professional career in television (primarly sports reporting) covering what I always wanted to cover - people and major events. When I began writing about the domain business - my area of interest and expertise was, guess what - writing features about people and major events. I have a particular love of Horatio Alger type stories that inspire others and show them it is possible to make something great out of nothing (or even worse - out of disastrous circumstances). Occasionally there will be a reader who for one personal reason or another doesn't like the person featured and they will accuse me of confusing Al Capone for Horatio Alger.
I am not an investigative reporter. That is the most specialized job in journalism and good ones are very hard to find. Today most of the major print and electronic media outlets have just one (if that many) permanently on staff. That person may be given months to complete a single story. Even if I wanted to be in that part of the profession I don't have the luxury of spending that much time on one article - but that is what it takes to make sure you and your company are not sued into oblivion.
I purposely positioned DN Journal as a magazine - not a newspaper, because I knew I was going to focus on what I wanted to write about (especially since I wasn't getting paid anything to write it when I started!). That was features and analysis, not daily breaking news (though I do some of that in our daily Lowdown column now, primarily because a lot of news comes to me simply because I have made so many contacts in the industry). On the internet breaking news is everywhere in a split second so it is not as big a differentiator as it was in the old days of traditional media when there were only three TV stations in a given market and two newspapers.
When I started writing about domains over 6 years ago, there weren't many other "channels" to turn to. There was mostly just DNJ with its focus on features, domain sales and events. Today there are many more channels and that is a good thing. When Andrew Allemann started writing Domain Name Wire he filled in the daily news gap (and has also been doing some excellent investigative work in the past year - I know how challenging that is and admire him for that), Adam and Frank added Domain Name News to the mix and often go beyond breaking news to writing news as it happens (live blogging results from live auctions for example).
Then, to really fill in the landscape, along came all of the great blogs that did not exist when DNJ started. The best blog writers, like Michael Berkens at TheDomains.com, are like the featured columnists in newspapers. They have their own personal style, depth of experience and skill set that make them people you want to read every time they have a new "column" out. Rick Schwartz is another guy who fits the columnist mold to a tee - a real lightning rod, controversial and colorful - a unique brand of his own that attracts attention whether people personally love him or hate him.
Today, mirroring the phenomenal diversity of the Internet itself, all of the different journalistic specialties are spread out across multiple sites rather than under one monolithic roof in the way that the newspapers were structured. TV, through shows like 60 Minutes, have popularized investigative reporters like Mike Wallace, and some (who think everything they see on TV is reality) think that, hey, EVERY writer must do what Mike Wallace does! Not even close - not even 1% fill that kind of role. As our industry grows we will one day have one or more people who will devote all of their time to that. And that will be a good thing too.
+1 HERE
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