My post yesterday regarding "real reviews" versus "blog reviews" led to an argument with my wife Jennifer, who has done some real reviewing. She pointed out that I didn't have facts to back up my numbers, for example the $100 payment, and that it seemed like I was saying that "real reviews" were all rushed and lazy.
As for the price, I picked that because it seemed like a maximum for what people are getting for commercial reviews, discounting incredibly big-name things like the New York Times Book Review. Consequently, if other people are payingn less, it seems to me that supports my argument even more, which is essentially that the lack of incentive to get things right is as bad for paid reviewers as it is for bloggers.
More importantly, I think that anyone who reads to the end of the post should see that my main point is that a good blogger is more worth reading than a mediocre pro or semi-pro reviewer. I certainly didn't mean that all print reviews are rushed and lazy. Obviously there are a lot of good ones, and I read print reviews of scifi, movies, music and other things all the time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
What is the difference between a "real" review and a blog review, anyway? Can't a blog review also be real, if the definition of "real" is that the review is backed by fact???
--P
Penelope: I agree with you completely. The quality of a review is entirely independent of the medium by which it's delivered.
I put the word "real" in quotes because some people feel that if they're writing a review for a print market or commercial website they're doing something qualitatively different from someone who's writing a review on a blog.
Post a Comment