A couple of days ago, Bitter, on Sebastian’s blog “Snowflakes in Hell”, noted that:
This is the second time in a month that Jim has used the blogosphere as a scapegoat for the rumor mill when I could find no evidence to back up the claims. If any readers find evidence that the blogosphere was responsible for spreading rumors about the demise of Daniel Defense this weekend, please share it, and I will make the correction. In the meantime, I find the claims dubious.
The first thing I thought when I read it was “I wonder if anyone has mentioned this to Jim? I met Jim Shepherd at the NRA Meetings in Louisville a couple of years ago ***edited to add: which meeting Bitter initiated and organized at considerable effort, for which thanks is due*** and he didn’t strike me as the kind of person to throw ANYONE under the bus without good reason.
So, I fired off a quick e-mail to Jim with a link to Bitter’s post and asked if he had any comment on it.
Within hours, he replied to both me and Sebastian that it was all a big misunderstanding. He accepted full responsibility for his “inexact” usage of the term blogosphere and assured us that he’d clear it up in today’s Outdoor Wire.
True to his word, in today’s “Outdoor Wire” feature:
Having heard from a couple of bloggers yesterday, I am going to plead guilty to an inexact application of the word “blogosphere”. Some of the very people I’ve characterized as the future of communications feel – justifiably – that I’ve tossed them under the proverbial bus recently.
That’s not the case. What I have done is use a term of art (blogosphere) as shorthand for all the myriad of internet communications. When I received nearly 100 emails and forwards of excerpts of a single report – and dozens of associated rumors- regarding Daniel Defense, I wrote that the “blogosphere was roiling”. A more accurate depiction would have been “rumors have been flying regarding Daniel Defense across the internet”. It was an unintentional shot at a group of individuals who I really do regard as integral parts of information distribution.
Several of the bloggers have called me to account on this one – and I have to plead guilty with a stipulation. It was inexact word usage, not intentional criticism. Calling me out on this one actually makes me feel better about accuracy in new media. Now, if I could only get someone in “old media” to take offense when I accuse them of unbridled bias….
Kudos to Jim Shepherd for accepting criticism without rancor or defensiveness and clearing the issue up quickly.
And perhaps we bloggers could take a word of caution to heart as well: Maybe, versus jumping to conclusions and excoriating our presumed allies in public right out of the gate, we should contact the person with whom we have a gripe and see if it can be worked out, BEFORE employing the “nuclear option” of airing our dirty laundry in public.
Just a thought.
