There is a new conglomeration of blogs that has had considerable trouble so far coming up with a moniker. Apparently at this point they have settled on Pajamas Media, but given the events of the past week, that could easily change. Their website is here. Of interest is the fact that their URL still refers to Open Source Media, a previous moniker they were forced to change because it already belonged to someone else.
The past several days has seen many bloggers critique this new organization and its missteps. Some of these are bloggers I really enjoy reading. The Pajamas Media (PJ media?) folk have responded very defensively in my opinion. In fact, their reaction has seemed very high-schoolish to me. The Pajamas Media folk are some of the more prominent bloggers. If there was one common characteristic among them, it would be a rather rabid opposition to all things Islamic or Arab, and a sweeping endorsement of all things Israeli. I have read most of them in the past, and I expected better from them. In fact at several points they have been forced to admit that their critics (whom they have attacked) were right and that they did make significant mistakes.
I can see no real need for what Pajamas Media does. Apparently it is an effort to make blogging more profitable. Good luck, but frankly, in my opinion blogging shouldn't be about profit. You will notice I have no ads on my blog, but then again, I blog on a free site. If someone wants to take ads to pay for their costs, I don't really have a problem with that. But blogging should not be a profession. If you want to write as a profession, become a journalist. The news links they do are done better by Drudge and I think the site The Huffington Post has shown how ineffective conglomerations of bloggers are.
Well the next several weeks will show whether this idea will work, and will probably be full of infighting among bloggers on either side of the proposition. It'll be interesting to see if, and how, the mainstream media cover this contretemps.
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