Posted by Eugene Volokh:
A Funny Comparison:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_12_31-2007_01_06.shtml#1167761180
Here's a [1]Christian Science Monitor headline from last week:
Backstory: H.L. Mencken, 'The Sage of Baltimore,' had a zing
bloggers can't touch
The story says nothing about bloggers or the Internet; rather, as best
I can tell the article is trying to say that no-one can touch
Mencken's zing. ("There's still time in this semicentenary year of
H.L. Mencken's passing to review his contributions to American letters
and ponder why -- even amid the modern effluvia of our hydra-headed
media -- he remains the most widely quoted American writer.") That may
well be right: Whatever you may think of his ideas or morals, the man
did have a way with words, and the degree to which he continues to be
quoted is evidence that he's a hard man to top.
But he's hard for everyone to top, whether one writes online or
offline, and whether one is a professional journalist or an amateur.
Perhaps he's zingier than 100% of all bloggers. Perhaps he's better
than 99.999%. But he's zingier than 99.999% or 100% of all modern
newspaper writers, too. So why the felt need to say that Mencken ("one
of ours," I take it, in the headline writer's and editor's view) can't
be touched by bloggers?
References
1. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1227/p20s01-bogn.html
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