BNN - How To Kill A Blog

There is a Gresham's law of sorts in all public and private relationships. Just as bad money drives good money from the market, bad bloggers can drive good bloggers from the marketplace of ideas. There are situations that people with responsibilities simply cannot tolerate.

As I have previously posted, I asked David Mastio, Chief Executive Officer of Blog Net News, to remove my blog from his online publication Blog Net News Oklahoma. I asked him to remove it because I do not find Blog Net News Oklahoma an appropriate venue for my work. Further, I do not care to be publicly or privately associated with some BNN contributors or their statements.

Mr. Mastio replied that he would hide behind the fair use doctrine and continue to use my name and blog entries without my permission.

Fair enough Mr. Mastio. Commencing with this post, I will no longer add new content to The Bill Kumpe Blog. I will continue blogging on a private blog. Access will be restricted to 100 selected readers of my choice. Those of you from BNN who are regular readers can contact me at bill@billkumpelawfirm.com for further information about access. Based upon my daily hit rate there will not be enough subscriptions to go around. Priorities will go first to my clients and allied attorneys, second to other scholars and researchers with whom I maintain a regular correspondent relationship and third to fellow bloggers of my choice.

I used to be a professional journalist. Other newspapers in the region regularly "picked up" my copy and reprinted it in their own papers. It was an honor to have those editors recognize my work in that manner. Those editors were friends and professional colleagues. I never had to worry that my copy would be published next to information that I (or now my clients) would find distasteful or embarrasing. That is not the case at BNN.

So, I am reluctantly "pulling the plug" on my public blog to prevent further unauthorized use of my work. While I do not agree with everything that British author Andrew Keen has to say about the new internet culture, I reluctantly have to agree that this situation is living proof of his assertion that "the cult of the amateur" is indeed "killing our culture," coarsening public discourse and eroding the intelligence of the next generation.