OUR MAN IN THE MEDIA WARS -

from an obscure niche
with or without the pajamas . . .

When last we regularly dropped in on Tim Dowling, he seemed deeply immersed in a series which was a sendup of a News Chat message board forum.

Some newspapers have humor columnists -
for example, The Miami Herald has Dave Barry.

What distinguishes Dowling, I believe, is his amazing talent for incredibly spot-on mimicry. In his message board series, as I recall, he established a number of characters who would post comments, yet each had his or her own distinctive diction. One almost came to feel these characters were real. Sure, it was a parody of sorts, nevertheless, it seemed to take on a life of its own.

What has he been doing lately? Well, I haven't been exactly stalking him. As far as I know, he has had a general humor column at least once a week in the Weekend Edition.

But now, it appears
that he may be undertaking a new series:

Hello subscribers, and welcome to this week's mailout, your guide to citizen journalism's "centre of excellence."

What problems could a citizen journalist run into?

He has already mastered the grassroots interview with the proverbial man on the Clapham bus. Or so he's led us to believe.

But what if some snoop from the Counter Terrorism Unit mistakes his website "benlagenlive" with "binladenlive?" That could cause a spot of trouble.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

:: Citizen journalist ::

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