#!markdown
I feel I'm guilty of primarily commenting negatively, and not really ever
figuratively high five-ing authors of articles on NSMB. So, as a one off I
will state that I really enjoy NSMB articles, essentially without reservation,
almost all the time. Good work and thanks. I do value NSMB and think it holds
an important place in the culture of MTB. In particular I like the work of
Seb, Morgan and Pete, but almost all are good.
I think Matt Robertson's and Mark Jordan's answers are spot on. I find the
point made by Mike Ferrentino quite interesting. I think there's about as much
good writing out there as there was before the internet allowed people to
publish their views for free, but I do concede that, superficially, that might
not seem to be the case since the average quality has decreased with so much
shit being available now. It just means that you can't blindly read (or watch)
things of a decent quality with a reasonable success rate anymore, but put a
little effort in and the rewards are there. I'd also say that journalism
standards on the whole were slipping for a long time before the internet (the
mainstream media in the US is a major contributor to that; there's a lot of
good material to read about it too), but the internet has provided a new angle
on bad journalism (really blogging) that has brought this into sharper relief.
Anyway, I think MTB media fits in with this trend of lower quality because it
is thematically inconsequential- almost no one cares about it and therefore
the pool of talented and passionate authors is relatively small, and I presume
there isn't enough money in it to attract those with talent but lacking
passion.
Oh yeah, I'd rather not see a change to focus on the kind of riding that 90%
of us do. I could start keeping a riding journal and/or buy a gopro if I was
interested in mediocre MTB.
Jan. 28, 2015, 2:54 p.m. - NatBrown
#!markdown I feel I'm guilty of primarily commenting negatively, and not really ever figuratively high five-ing authors of articles on NSMB. So, as a one off I will state that I really enjoy NSMB articles, essentially without reservation, almost all the time. Good work and thanks. I do value NSMB and think it holds an important place in the culture of MTB. In particular I like the work of Seb, Morgan and Pete, but almost all are good. I think Matt Robertson's and Mark Jordan's answers are spot on. I find the point made by Mike Ferrentino quite interesting. I think there's about as much good writing out there as there was before the internet allowed people to publish their views for free, but I do concede that, superficially, that might not seem to be the case since the average quality has decreased with so much shit being available now. It just means that you can't blindly read (or watch) things of a decent quality with a reasonable success rate anymore, but put a little effort in and the rewards are there. I'd also say that journalism standards on the whole were slipping for a long time before the internet (the mainstream media in the US is a major contributor to that; there's a lot of good material to read about it too), but the internet has provided a new angle on bad journalism (really blogging) that has brought this into sharper relief. Anyway, I think MTB media fits in with this trend of lower quality because it is thematically inconsequential- almost no one cares about it and therefore the pool of talented and passionate authors is relatively small, and I presume there isn't enough money in it to attract those with talent but lacking passion. Oh yeah, I'd rather not see a change to focus on the kind of riding that 90% of us do. I could start keeping a riding journal and/or buy a gopro if I was interested in mediocre MTB.