Is amateur journalism dead?

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on March 23rd, 2009

Our title suggests a snarky response to the cliché that is the title of Daniel Banas’ article on Examiner.com (L.A. edition), “Is LA Standup dead, or just a sound sleeper?” We were going to fisk it line-by-line, but it turned out to be so thoroughly muddleheaded and so hopelessly inane that we immediately calmed down and decided it wasn’t worth the time. It’s just bad writing serving as a name-dropping vehicle and a chance to display entertainment/standup journo chops by *yawn* dissing Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook.

Add to that the internet, which offers a voice to the unhinged and socially awkward from the comfort of their lonely apartments, and it wasn’t long before the Dane Cooks and Carlos Mencias of the world are the face of the Los Angeles’ stand-up scene. Yikes.

Yikes, indeed! This meme– that the internet offers anyone a “voice” and that the voice becomes the face(?) of standup– is truly dopey.

We like the concept behind the Examiner.com (in fact, we pumped a piece by FOS DJ Hazard, whose writing appears regularly in the NY version), but they really ought to be a bit more careful about letting stuff like this get in.

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