Reports from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books blogging panel are coming in:

Carolyn Kellogg: “Instead I would have loved to have a topic like: ‘litblogs — what’s good, what’s bad, what’s next?’ I know what I’d like to do more of (I think it’s a congenital blogger condition to be cursing oneself for not fill-in-the-blank), but I want the bigger picture. What does it take for a litblog to be successful – voice? genre? regular posting? Have we made any big mistakes (like engaging n+1 in an argument over an article critical of litblogs — an article they never put online)? What exciting, fun things are happening in the litblog world? I would have loved to hear what Tod and Ron and the audience thought.”

Ron Hogan: “I spent most of my time veering away from the money question (after pointing out that I’d figured out how to get paid) and hammering at the notion that online media is inherently less reliable and more susceptible to corruption than its traditional counterparts, and, in the particular case of book reviewing, the online media were frankly picking up the slack for the dwindling coverage in print. Somewhere along the line, Keen said something like, ‘I just think we have enough media already.’ Frankly, I sorta boggled, and called that an incredibly stagnant notion. ‘We have enough books already, too, but we keep publishing new ones,’ I went on. ‘We have enough movies to watch… The horse and buggy was a perfectly good way to travel, what do we need cars for?’ (I’m slightly paraphrasing here; the transcripts and, with luck, an audio recording of the event should be available online one day from the Times.)”

BookFox: “What I found disconcerting was that the panel seemed to revolve around Andrew Keen – his book and his assertion that the only possible model for online content is one that pays financial dividends. Everyone kept mentioning his book The Cult of the Amateur – usually attacking one premise or another – and for most of the conversation, the panel focused on the problem of money. So it seemed that rhetorically, the conversation revolved around rebutting Keen’s arguments, giving him the high argumentative ground, rather than the bloggers being able to establish a neutral space to discuss the facts.”

The Elegant Variation: “Keen’s overriding concern was with the absence of a sustainable business model in the blogosphere, and the problems inevitable for institutional media once the audience gets hooked on free content. As a corollary, when the institutions falter, the superiority that Keen claims for professionalism disintegrates. He claimed that a form of expression that anyone can do is so easily imitable that the risks of corporate corruption and abuse are huge, and the reader is vulnerable not only to some weak-ass literary criticism but out-and-out fraud.”

My response to the muddled arguments in the first 30 pages of Keen’s book can be found here. I am hoping to address the book’s balance in future posts.

Years later, there’s little in the way of vocal improvement (in fact, there is a marked decline), and there’s a troubling reliance upon stage presence of dancers.

At the same show, you can look no further than this guy for lessons on how to sign and perform at the old Wembley Stadium.

Smoking Gun: “A Pennsylvania woman claims that her teaching career has been derailed by college administrators who unfairly disciplined her over a MySpace photo that shows her wearing a pirate hat and drinking from a plastic cup. In a federal lawsuit, Stacy Snyder charges that Millersville University brass accused her of promoting underage drinking after they discovered her MySpace photo, which was captioned ‘Drunken Pirate.'” (via MeFi)

There are more arguments against the current NBCC approach from Colleen, Jeff and Marydell.

Michael Dirda and I have emailed. He’s a reasonable guy and he confessed to me that it was likely that he was having a bad day. Like any of us, Dirda is concerned about the future of literary discussion. (And it should also be noted that Dirda maintains an online weekly book chat for the Washington Post.) In an effort to keep the discussion constructive, I have offered him some ideas on where print and online might meet in the next ten years. (And, yes, I also attempted to email John Freeman, but he has proven, to put it lightly, highly antagonistic towards civil conversation.)

I suspect that much of the hostility towards online literary outlets comes from print people who again see it as a threat and would rather bash those participating in literary matters rather than integrate it. That’s a great shame. Because all of us are really on the same side here.

UPDATE: Former San Francisco Chronicle Books Editor Pat Holt, one of the first literary journalists to understand the possibilities of the Internet, has offered a new column (her first in many months) on the issue, asking:

But maybe it’s time for those of us who have worked as critics for a living to evaluate what’s happened to our profession — and why we may be driving readers away.

In the last 25 years, just about everything about the print experience has changed — except the way critics review books.

UPDATE 2: John Freeman has offered a more conciliatory post this morning, pointing out, “It is in the preservation of that resource that we are fighting now — and we’re asking everyone who cares about it to join us. Even those of you — print journalists or bloggers — who write in your fierce pajamas.”

While this doesn’t address all the problems of the NBCC’s campaign, it’s a very encouraging start. I have again reached out to Freeman by email.

UPDATE 3: Dan Wickett also offers his thoughts, pointing precisely how he started off in the blogging business. I have to say that if you told me three years ago that I’d be talking with John Updike, Richard Ford, Erica Jong, T.C. Boyle, Martin Amis, and many other fantastic authors (120+ interviews in just under two years), that I’d be reviewing books at newspapers, that I’d be a member of the LBC and the NBCC, that I’d be seriously working on my own novel every dutiful Sunday, that I’d have more books than I’d know what to do with and that I’d find many good friends from all this, I wouldn’t have believed you. Like Dan, my unexpected trajectory into books emerged out of my literary passions. This came from nothing, and I certainly expected nothing. I just worked very hard under the often crazed circumstances, did my best to answer every email, and did the very best I could to present literary coverage, hoping that others might find some use for the bounteous material here and elsewhere. I’ll have more to say on this, and other matters, in about two weeks, when I’ll be making a major announcement here. But I truly believe we are in a serious convergence. I also believe we can put last week’s fracas behind us and concentrate on what we all do to soldier forth into the literary future.