Nanny-gate, 2005

It's a striking story, and there are a lot of ways to analyze it or its implications. A journalist throws a tantrum after reading her nanny's blog, brings a big stick, and ends up covered with mud. No idea whether she learned anything along the way, but some other folks have made it quite interesting. I was almost going to skip mentioning the whole thing until Daniel Rubin did the job of summarizing the saga and analysis on Blinq, his newspaper-based blog.

As I said, the Olen piece reminded me of a blog. But by appearing in the Times, it underscores the power play between master and servant, mainstream media and blogger. It is sensitive business, plucking a blog from anonymity and bringing into a larger well-lighted room. It has to be done right.

Indeed. One needs some time to get to know the character and voice of a blogger, as well as enough other blogs to put that voice in perspective, let alone to know enough to extract bits with sufficient context. Probably not an approach compatible with maternal defensive flame-out.