Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Riddle me this, blogosphere

Nick Lewis suspects CNN may have engaged in a guerrila marketing campaign by posting blog comments to 'promote' some of their new shows.

The responses to Lewis' research fall largely into three groups:
* Great work!
* Interesting, but I'm not convinced
* You've been scammed, Lewis!

I myself fall into the second category - there's no smoking gun. But I strongly praise Lewis for doing research, something many professional journalists seem to have forgotten how to do (if they ever knew at all.)

As is most often the case, the truth may remain unknown. But journalists are always fighting this uphill battle. The best any journalist has ever been able to do is to do the research (as Lewis did) and see where it leads. Anyone who doesn't want to call that journalism is fooling themselves.

Sidenote: what would be really ironic is if Lewis cooked the whole thing up to generate buzz about his blog. Not that I think it's true, but considering all the possibilities is like playing a game of mental Twister.