10 Words and Phrases For Bloggers to Avoid

Although we're well into 2007, here's a list of the top ten words and phrases I'd love to see fade from view both in the blogosphere and MSM in general:

1. Britney Spears. God but I am tired of Britney Spears. Since the beginning of the year I have heard more about Britney Spears and have seen more of Britney Spears (literally) than I ever, ever wanted. She has gone from pop princess to second rate celebrity to caricature. This calls to mind one other youngster who followed that path from stardom to weirdom and beyond. I guess there is an upside: at least Britney isn't fondling little boys. Yet. But she is hanging out with Paris. Anyway, enough said.

2. "Enough said." And it's slangier variant, "'nuff said." To be sure, anytime someone writes "enough said" you can be fairly certain that they've already said too much.

3. "To be sure." Intellectually gifted individuals can pull off using the phrase "to be sure" with relative success. George Will, for example, who earned a graduate degree at Princeton, can get away with it from time to time. Too often, though, using the phrase "to be sure" makes a writer sound like someone who really wants to be an intellectual, but very clearly isn't. In the way that if you have to ask how much something costs you probably can't afford it, if you have to ask yourself whether you should be using the phrase "to be sure," you probably shouldn't.

4. "Insurgents." I know there's probably nothing better to call the insurgents besides insurgents. Maybe irhabists? Secess? Anarchists? Extremists? I dunno. I just wish I didn't have to hear about them so often. 'Nuff said.

5. "War on Drugs." This term was coined in 1976 1971 (thanks, 6pence) by then- President Richard Nixon. OK. If you've been at war for 31 years and you haven't won yet, it's time to stop calling it a war. Or at least admit you've lost. (Maybe we should start calling it an insurgency instead.) If jackboot interdiction methods and ridiculously strict sentencing practices haven't worked (because, if the police are to be believed, the problem is worse now than ever), then maybe we should try something different for a while.

6. Nudity. Michelle Manhart goes nude in Playboy. Daniel Radcliffe goes nude in the theater. Darryl Delacruz goes jogging in the nude in a park near San Jose, CA. Pam Anderson and Sadie Frost go nude for PETA. None of this is really newsworthy. It's an odd comment on the fragile state of our collective sensibilities that a person can make national news just by taking their clothes off. I am hoping for the day when naked protesters are regarded as a bit touched perhaps, but not "shocking" in the least, and that their naked state might be mentioned in passing but isn't the news topic in and of itself.

7. Anything. Written. Like. This. This has got to be one of the most annoying practices ever. Stop. The. Madness.

8. Britney Spears. Yes, again. Hopefully the message gets through.

9. Gratuitous foreign words. I occasionally amuse myself by reading Anna Quindlen's editorials until I get to the gratuitous foreign expression. Usually it is within the first 80 words or so. Maybe this practice is supposed to demonstrate worldliness, or some sense of cosmopolitanism. Maybe its supposed to show that the author is very smart. I suppose, in one way, if both you and the audience know a foreign language very well and the foreign word expresses the desired sentiment or meaning far better than any English word you can think of then it would make sense to use it. Under any other circumstances, though, the practice is simply pretentious.

10. "Peace process." There is either peace, or there is not. Calling it the "peace process" is a way of getting everyone to feel good about peace when, clearly, it's still a disaster in progress. I'm all for peace. Anything short of peace is just negotiations.


This item linked at Outside the Beltway.

Is Blogging Advertising?

Leigh Jones at the New York Law Journal has a recent piece on blogging, this time from the perspective of law blogs and whether they constitute advertising.

Many states, such as New York, are in the process of revamping their attorney ethics rules, and part of that process involves the prickly issue of whether blogs should be regulated as advertising. On the one hand, states want to protect consumers from unscrupulous lawyer advertising presented under the guise of an online diary. On the other, they want to preserve the free flow of ideas -- and valuable legal information presented in a public forum -- that the new technology has fostered.

Fair enough.

New York is reviewing its lawyer advertising rules, and some of the proposed changes are making bloggers nervous. In trying to formulate rules to encompass everything from print ads to Internet pop-ups, the state's four presiding justices last spring broadened its rules on lawyer advertising. The state has delayed implementation of any changes until after a comment period, which was extended last month. The changes would pertain not only to New York firms, but, significantly, to out-of-state attorneys advertising in New York. Part of the concern is that the proposals pertain to "written advertisements and solicitations and computer-accessed communications." Such a definition, say some observers, could include blogs. If so, the rules, which propose, for example, a requirement that law firms file their advertisements with a disciplinary committee for public view and scrutiny, could stifle blog dialogue.

I wonder what public policy could be served by a filing requirement that requires someone to file something that is available publicly? A registration requirement might be more straightforward. The disciplinary committee could easily develop a software application to automatically scan the registered blogs periodically for words or certain combinations of words that could raise red flags. New York's ethical police like to pick on terms like "expert" or "specialist," and those could easily be flagged by a spider for follow up by a live person.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati partner Catherine Kirkman publishes the Silicon Valley Media Law blog, which is referenced in her biography on the firm's Web site. The blog covers recent decisions pertaining to media law and includes resources and observations about the practice area. Ms. Kirkman sees her blog as a means of publication rather than advertising. "I really haven't looked at it through that lens," she said. "It's a way to participate in the community and be a resource in terms of analyzing cases."

Sorry, I don't buy that for half a second. As a private sector practitioner for ten years, I can say without hesitation that for a lawyer in private practice, publication is advertising. You cannot pick up an advice piece about marketing without reading about what a benefit publication is.

Incidentally, prominently at the top of Kirkman's blog, right next to her picture, is a link to "About Cathy," where you can learn about her prior work experience and the fact, touted in bold, that Cathy has "extensive expertise in digital media, copyright and Internet law." Therewith follows extensive name dropping, including listing Google, Lucasfilm, Napster, InfoSpace (Moviso), Fox Family Music, FoxKids.com, and "Bad Boy Technologies (P Diddy)" as clients, and many, many more. Just under that is a link to "Legal Services" where visitors can read about the 33 different kinds of legal services Cathy can provide (not an exhaustive list), and just under that is a link to "Contact Cathy."

So, let's boil that all down: Who she is. What she does. How to reach her.

Hmm. Sure smells like advertising to me, all disclaimers to the contrary.

"We should market ourselves in a way that does not demean the profession,"
[said Ernest Svenson, a blogger better known as Ernie the Attorney.] "Most
bloggers are going in that direction."

Agreed. And Ms. Kirkman's blog is one good example. A quick review of the posts gives the impresssion that they refer to current, relevant, and important topics. I am not into media law, but if I were, I'd probably drop in from time to time. At the same time, you can't convince me it's not advertising.

Or, at the very least, you can't say that the blog as a whole isn't advertising. You might be able to cut a fine distinction between the biographical information and practice description, which are clearly advertising, and the blog entries themselves, which are less clear cut. Isolating any one post, you could look at it and say, "not advertising."

But how to distinguish between the two? Perhaps we can borrow from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous standard for describing hardcore porn: (to paraphrase) I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

Blogging on the Job

There's an interesting piece in the September 7 New York Law Journal about blogging at work. Here are some interesting outtakes:

Many corporate executives still seem a little confused about exactly what [blogs] are. Only 30 percent of senior Fortune 1000 executives in a recent telephone survey reported having a thorough understanding of the term "Internet blog."

A short while later we learn a little about how these executives know about blogs:

Twelve percent of the recently surveyed Fortune 1000 executives reported taking legal or other action in response to a blog. There is even a term on the Internet for getting fired for a blog, "dooced," taken from the name of the blog www.dooce.com.

The urbandictionary supports this claim.

Squirreled away in the article, which is written to assist employers in figuring out how to handle blogging employees, are a couple of gems that might be of interest to the bloggers themselves:

Some employers might be tempted to adopt a blunderbuss approach by simply banning all blogs, all the time. Employers subject to New York law should be aware of the limited protection for "legal recreational activities" under §201-d of the Labor Law.

Unlike most states . . . New York also prohibits employers from terminating employees for engaging in "legal recreational activities outside work hours."

And apparently there is help for bloggers at the federal level too:

Employers should also understand that federal labor law may protect some blogging content. The National Labor Relations Act protects certain "concerted activities" by employees, whether they are members of a union or not. An employee fired for the content of his or her blog could file an unfair labor practice charge under 29 USC §158, alleging that the firing was a result of such activity. "Concerted activities" do not have to involve a union and may be based upon the acts of a single employee when carried out with or under the authority of other employees, and not solely by and on behalf of that individual employee. Concerted activity includes actions to initiate, induce or prepare for group action.

But is it the beginning of the end?

While bloggers like to consider themselves outside what they call the "Mainstream Media" of newspapers, magazines and television, the blog is growing more mainstream every year. The New York Times, for example, has recently begun encouraging many of its reporters and columnists to publish blogs on its web site, where they engage in expanded discussions on issues addressed in their articles and columns, and even has a section called the "Opinionator," which samples comments on various outside blogs.

Gaaa. Here I had been feeling good about stepping onto the cutting edge of the web, only to find out I'm just as mainstream as the Old Gray Lady. Oh well.

As to blogging at work, the snippets are encouraging, but for the nonce I'll stick to doing this on my own time.