John Biggs: On Gizmodo’s douchery and blogging

CrunchGear's John Biggs takes a look at "Gizmodo’s douchery and blogging":

"I doubt Walt Mossberg would run around turning off TVs or getting really drunk. I doubt David Pogue would take pictures of booth babes. But these sophomoric shenanigans — along with rumors, rants, and fanboyism — are sadly the bread and butter of blogging. Otherwise a blog is just a press release regurgitation machine."

And that's the problem. If all you can bring to the table is bad behaviour, all you are is a badly-behaved press release regurgitating machine. You're not the reincarnation of Hunter S. Thompson.

Having said that, I think John underestimates the level of debauchery that professional journalists are capable of. While, as he puts it, "Business Week rarely have to sprinkle out sawdust in the break room", I can think of more than a few occasions when tech journalists I know were guilty of puking (or worse) in the kitchen sink. The big difference? You knew when not to be an asshole. Clearly, no one at Gizmodo is teaching the kids that.