Blogged to Death

Turns out, when you write about bloggers, they write back. So it’s been one hell of a circle-jerk over the past week as computer jockeys around the country weighed in and inveighed upon the Bill Hobbs affair, both on the Scene’s blog and a few hundred others. The story of Hobbs’ demise in the Belmont University public relations department and subsequent ascension into right-wing blogger martyrdom made headlines in Tennessee and waves in all sorts of Internet circles, including those of clubby local bloggers, conservative national ones and net-surfers with an eye toward happenings in higher education. First, for those with day jobs, a quick recap of recent events. Democratic political operative Mike Kopp found a crude portrayal of the Islamic prophet Mohammed that local “blog-based journalist” Bill Hobbs had posted on his website several weeks back. Kopp posted it on his own blog and challenged Belmont and Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Bryson to defend their respective associations (one formal, one not) with Hobbs, whose satire aimed at suicide bombers but hit the entire Islamic faith. The Scene reported on the duel last week and added our own two cents—namely, that the cartoon was tasteless and offensive—and within days, Hobbs was no longer employed by Belmont. The blogosphere erupted. Certainly, the whole affair raises issues worth debating. Is an ersatz journalist with mainstream media credentials a fair target? What if he’s prominent in some political circles and, by day, a paid representative of a local university? Can he be fired for his private statements? If an anti-Muslim cartoon is drawn in the blogospheric forest and few people read it, does it still offend? Can an alt-media journalist on his way to work for a centrist politician point out conservative Muslim-bashing when he sees it? And, most importantly, isn’t karma a bitch? In blog comment threads, these questions were dealt with in approximately inverse proportion to their importance. So nothing’s been settled, and lots of names were called along the way. But over the past week, the Scene has learned a few lessons, and like Hobbs, we’ll paint with a broad, provocative brush here. First, bloggers want media attention until they get it. Second, many of them are far more reactive than the angry Muslims we feared would storm our offices after we took Bill’s challenge and published a hateful Mohammed caricature in our newspaper. Third, pissing off bloggers is great for the Scene’s web traffic. And fourth, you can cobble together enough of their rants, under names real and assumed, to form a decently entertaining political notes column. Read to the end, and you’ll even learn that Bill’s landed on his feet. What follows are a smattering of comments from our blog (www.pithinthewind.com) and posts from a few others. Yes, bloggers, they are edited and arranged, but we’ve tried to represent a wide range of viewpoints. “Washing your hands of it on Good Friday, eh, Scene? What an injustice to Bill and what an unprofessional bunch you are.”—Donna Locke “If this really was an effort by Democrats and liberal bloggers to ‘silence’ Hobbs, as some on the right have claimed, it will backfire. Now that he’s no longer working at Belmont, he’s free to write about whatever he wants, as much as he wants. This is one crucial difference between bloggers and journalists: Get a columnist or reporter fired, and you might actually silence him/her. Get bloggers fired from their day jobs, and you’ve given them more time—and more reason—to go after you and yours hammer-and-tongs. And other bloggers are apt to join in. (And even if, as I suspect, Hobbs was just ‘collateral damage,’ I think the point still holds).”—Glenn Reynolds (a.k.a. Instapundit) “This Spragens rat wants to work for Congressman Cooper? Maybe Cooper needs to hear about Spragens’ smear work. Perhaps Rep. Cooper would prefer not to be associated with former employees of tabloids that advertise for prostitutes and vilify Tennessee Christians.”—David Davenport “The fact that the paper deemed a local political blogger’s posts to be worthy of a lengthy article indicates that blogs are making headway, becoming legitimate news sources. But with legitimacy comes accountability. If Spragens wrote about something amazing that a local blogger had done, people would be jumping up and down for joy on this thing. Instead, he wrote about an egregious misstep. (Those always get more attention, don’t they?) Sure, Hobbs might not get recognized in the grocery store, but neither will a lot of ‘official’ journalists, or even a lot of Metro councilmen. That does not make him a Regular Joe. He is a well-known local ‘blog-based journalist.’ You can’t demand respect and legitimacy and then shy away from criticism once it is granted to you.”—Claire “It’s OK for South Park to mock Christians—it’s OK for Rolling Stone to put some punk on their cover as Christ, but Islam is off limits in America too? In Nashville, the answer is yes. The irony that he is out of a job for trying to buttress the principle that true liberty is found in America as opposed to our PC brethren across the sea is so thick, you could cut it with a knife.”— Terry “Quick! Which of you douchebags can rattle your culture war sabre the loudest?”—Jason “I am delighted Bill Hobbs got fired. I don’t see how you can work at an institution of higher learning, go out of your way to deliberately abuse a faith, and still keep your job. Belmont has every right to let go of someone who acts like an idiot in public, which is essentially what he did. It’s funny how conservatives pick their underdogs. When the Scene exposed how security guards terrorized local Hispanics, I don’t remember a lot of you praising the Scene for stopping the abuse in its tracks. But when it outs the stupid bigotry of a Williamson County blogger, you’re ready to revolt. Anyhow, I’m proud of my former colleague for writing one helluva column—authoratively reported, sharp, irrefutable. I have yet to hear anyone explain how Spragen’s Jesus Slays analogy was anything less than perfect. As far as Hobbs, he will be in my prayers tonight. But just this once, I’m going to pray to Allah.”—Matt Pulle “I’ll say it one more time (but more plainly): Bill Hobbs didn’t get shit-canned over Islam. He got shit-canned because he’s an asshole. The stupid cartoon was just the final straw. Here in America, assholes get fired everyday. Hobbs is no different. You should go stick up for a principled conservative who actually deserves your crocodile tears.”—Floyd “I’ve disagreed with much of what Bill Hobbs has had to post, but considering that his cartoon was not read or seen by that many people, I don’t think it warranted his having to leave Belmont. Mike Kopp and John Spragens are lacking in ethics. If Rep. Jim Cooper decides to let Spragens come to work for him, he will be as well.”—Reason “[M]y major beef is that Spragens—and, I guess, by extension, the Scene—used the tremendous resources at their disposal to fire a bazooka at a housefly, and may have caused undue anguish to a regular Joe, his family and their loved ones in their wake. I love the Scene, I love the people at the Scene and—as I have said in the past and will continue to say—they have always been very good to me, even when they didn’t have to be. But I’m very ashamed of this.”—Roger Abramson “Firing Bill Hobbs is just as much an act of free speech as anything else.”—Barbieux “Nonsense on all of this free speech stuff. Hobbs was not fired because he exercised his free speech; he was fired because he exercised poor judgment. Mainstream journalists get fired all the time for using bad judgment, writing the wrong thing, being offensive to a readership. Do you think every journalist in America is an Ann Coulter or a Molly Ivins? Hell no. Let someone at the Elizabethton Star piss off the readership with something offensive, and you’ll see how long they last. Hobbs was Belmont’s PR guy. He was supposed to make them look good. He didn’t. Instead, he made Belmont look bad. They canned him. (Or he ‘resigned,’ if you insist.)”—Bill “If someone who worked for Vanderbilt’s PR department posted an anti-Semitic statement or drawing on his personal blog, would Vanderbilt fire him? Of course. Should he be surprised? No. Would Vanderbilt be justified in firing him? Absolutely. I don’t see this as a freedom-of-speech issue. Academic freedom doesn’t apply here. Hobbs is not a university teacher. Belmont is officially, publicly represented by this man, and they have every right to conclude that the content of his public blog (as opposed to, say, an inflammatory cartoon that he showed to a colleague in private) hurts Belmont’s image and makes it impossible for the school to be represented effectively by him.”— Randy Horick “Bill Hobbs isn’t the victim of someone diggin’ through his trash, looking for dirt on him. He called the local media cowards and issued a challenge. They took him up on that challenge. No one asked for him to be fired, and no one but Belmont and Bill Hobbs knows whether he was fired or for what reasons. Even if Spragens was motivated to write the article by a politically based hatred of Bill Hobbs and a desire to destroy him somehow, it doesn’t change the fact that this whole deal came about because the Scene did what Bill Hobbs asked.”—Kevin Newman “If Bill Hobbs doesn’t believe in karma after this, then he never will.”— brittney “Put a crown of thorns on him, that poor Bill Hobbs has been crucified! Just like Tom DeLay! But one day he will arise! Praise Jesus!”—GG “I refuse to support those businesses who would advertise in the Nashville Scene. Spragens should be fired.”—Boycott the Scene “For my supporters and detractors, know this: I’m going to be fine. I already had plenty of consulting work, and more is coming in. This incident hasn’t hurt me. (It has taught me some valuable lessons.) Belmont was a great place to work. I did some amazing work there that will make the résumé look great, and the university was gracious at the end. The bottom line is I stupidly put an offensive cartoon online and left it there where Kopp found it. It was Kopp, not me, who shared it with the world, allegedly on behalf of the smiling Muslim kids in his neighborhood. (*cough*) And then his political ally at the Scene wrote a slanted and partially inaccurate story and the rest is history. If I had been a PR advisor telling Belmont what to do in this situation, rather than the employee involved, I would have told them to part ways with the employee—even though I think Mike Kopp is a sleazeball for what he did. I was happy at Belmont from start to finish, and enjoyed having a job where my job was to promote my client via the blogosphere. Now, I’m off to find more clients.”—Bill Hobbs Comments taken from www.flanktwoposition.com, www.volunteervoters.com, www.instapundit.com and www.pithinthewind.com.