My Blogathon report runs this morning in the Chicago Tribune.
(you can log in with my member name and password of "nbiermaread")
permanent link:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/chi-0208020005aug02.story

A few footnotes :
- I had some creative differences with my editors over the tone of the piece which seem to strike at the heart of blogging itself. I tried to write with a more reportorial than personal tone because of 1) my disgust with the endless blogger blather out there about pointless personal details, 2) my goal to show that blogs could be informative, even discursive, rather than just a personal blowhole, and 3) the fact that my life that Saturday wasn't particularly fascinating, but (at least I thought) my subjects--the state of blogs and the future of words--were. But I deferred to their view that readers would wonder how someone reacts to staying awake, let alone typing, for so long. In so doing, I may have tilted it to far to the personal side.

- I asked if the text of the article could be represented differently in the paper somehow--the hyperlinks could be underlined and the quotes italicized (as they were in the blog). But it turns out such font-fiddling wouldn't be compatible with our CCI editing system. I took it as a revealing and awkward confrontation of new media and old.
(By the way, I don't mean to be knocking my editors; they gave me wise help to steer the piece and I trust their judgment.)

- I'd feel awful if I didn't correct one copy editing error that made UC-Berkeley professor Paul Grabowiczsay that his course is a sign that the academy has lost its mind, rather than that his course has irrationally been taken as a sign that the academy has lost its mind. It was right in the weblog and got screwed up in the editing phase (see, blogs can be more reliable than print, not just the other way around!) As the saying goes, the Tribune regrets the error.

- Outstanding Trib cultural critic Julia Keller did a fine piece this week on the digitalization of the Gutenberg Bible, which is in keeping with my ponderings of the future of words in a digital age
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/...