Call the wah-mbulance!

Move over, Jon Klein. Washington Post “humorist” Gene Weingarten (that’s pronounced WHINE-garten) wants to claim the MSM blog-haters’ throne.

Greg Sheffield has the scoop at Newsbusters:

Washington Post humor writer and journalist Gene Weingarten, who writes a regular commentary called Below the Beltway, gave a commencement speech to graduating journalism students at the University of Maryland.

In today’s world, he says, it’s getting tougher for journalism majors to find jobs, especially when “the public appears more and more willing to receive its ‘news’ online from nincompoops ranting in their underpants.”

I want to congratulate you all upon your graduation from the University of Maryland College of Journalism, and wish you luck as you prepare to embark on exciting careers in telemarketing or large-appliance repair.

My point is, this is a challenging time for journalists.

And because you are word people, you understand that “challenging time” is a euphemism often used to describe disasters of epic proportions. For example, Richard Pryor was facing a “challenging time” when he ran down the street half-naked and on fire.

What are your challenges, specifically? Let us begin with, quote unquote, getting a job. Good jobs in journalism have become scarce as newspapers shrink and die, broadcast media fragment to smaller niche audiences and the public appears more and more willing to receive its “news” online from nincompoops ranting in their underpants.

Several readers think Weingarten was just joshing. That would be novel.

Uh, speaking of those nincompoops in their underpants…

The Washington Post has teamed with Technorati to hook up its readers with the blogosphere. Go check out the new “Buzzmap” feature here. I got the press release yesterday:

(Arlington VA—June 1, 2006) Washingtonpost.com (www.washingtonpost.com) and the global blogosphere authority Technorati have partnered to launch a new dynamic feature that presents the most current blog posts about opinions published by a range of news sites and bloggers around the world.

Called Buzz Map, the new graphical tool, which will appear only in the Opinions section of washingtonpost.com (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/opinions/), will track more than 100 syndicated columnists and popular opinion bloggers, and rank them based on the number of links to those columns throughout the blogosphere. The Buzz Map will display the ten most popular columns and posts in a 72-hour period.

Washingtonpost.com executive editor, Jim Brady, said “The Buzz Map is an effective visual way of showing how news does not stop after it’s published, but takes on a new life in discussions on blogs, in classrooms, in the workplace and everywhere that people talk about the issues that matter to them.”

“Bloggers are now firmly established as the idea amplifiers we rely upon to help shape our opinions and outlook on today’s most important issues,” said David L. Sifry, founder and CEO of Technorati. “Our expanding partnership with Washingtonpost.com enables us to further serve the blogosphere by bringing their voices to an enormous and growing readership.”

Technorati and washingtonpost.com also partner on a popular feature listing links to blog mentions about articles throughout the site.

Caroline Little, CEO and publisher of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive said, “Connecting users to ‘the global conversation’ about news and issues has been a focus of washingtonpost.com’s successful online strategy. We’re pleased to add this dynamic enhancement to our focus on connecting people to one another.”

Washingtonpost.com was recently the recipient of three EPpy Awards from Editor & Publisher/Mediaweek, including Best Newspaper-Affiliated Internet Service (over 1 million circulation).

Don’t tell Mr. Whinegarten.

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