Kane Watch: So there's this goose and this gander...

According to John McAdams,...

It’s a backhanded tribute to the black columnist at
the Journal-Sentinel that anybody considers it worthwhile to have a “Eugene Kane
Watch.”

If that's the case, then all of us in the Milwaukee blogosphere owe Eugene Kane a word of thanks for his putting into print his backhanded tribute to blogs.

According to Mr. Kane's headline...

Blogging gives everyone a voice

Sounds good to me. There's a fairly straight forward point.

The first line in the story...

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it,
has it made a sound?

Ok then. Already I'm thinking that while he's willing to acknowledge that "blogging gives everyone a voice," I'm cerain he doesn't have much respect for the voice.

He mentions...

One newly popular right-wing blogger has made a reputation
slamming her former colleagues at the Journal Sentinel as she scales the
blogosphere mountain. The peculiar thing is that less than five years ago I
remember the same blogger agreeing with me that most of Milwaukee's right-wing
talk show hosts were ridiculous social provocateurs not worthy of serious
consideration.

He refers to bloggers as...

local blowhards

He uses his column to say...

Blogging is best when it's a clearinghouse for ideas rather than a long-winded exercise in self-congratulatory rhetoric.

But not until after he uses his column, and thank goodness not his blog, to say...

It's my humble opinion that the best blogs - like mine at www.jsonline.com/links/raisingkane - don't rant and rave as much as refer readers to interesting stories and commentary from other sources.

And finally...

New studies show that Internet sites run by newspapers are growing rapidly.
JSOnline, in fact, attracts more than 2 million unique visitors per month,
and 50 million page views per month.

Which motivates much of the point behind Kane Watch. You have a potential audience of 2 million a month alone. Quit alientating readers and start really talking about how to solve so many of the problems facing Milwaukee's black or minority populations.

Unless, of course, your goal is just to sell more newspapers and get more hits. If that's the case, I'll leave you alone. In that respect, you're doing your job.

One more thing. He claimed...

The most surprising blog I have seen is called "Suburban
Life" written by someone named Cat, who describes herself as "a Conservative
Christian.""

Which is a great post. But I just have to say something.

He cites Jessica McBride. More than once in the last week, Kane has been the topic on Charlie Sykes well-known radio program. Charlie has a blog that I'm sure Eugene has visited once or twice. And just today I happened to write an entry referencing the very same nearly 16-month-old blog entry he used. Kane's is an article quite skillfully questioning the worth of blogs. And I got the feeling he was kinda trying to delegitimize blogs a little bit.

Yet he didn't even bother to mention Kane Watch.

Nevermind full disclosure. I want my own danged backhanded tribute.