I’m going to get all Atticus Finch here and stand in defense of a man who has about as much chance of a fair hearing in the online world as did Tom Robinson in Maycomb County, Alabama.

The defendant is North Carolina journalism professor Michael Skube, who had disdainful things to say recently about blogging and those who practice it. After you read his comments here, you’ll understand why this was a reckless and foolhardy thing to do. Skube wrote: “One gets the uneasy sense that the blogosphere is a potpourri of opinion and little more. The opinions are occasionally informed, often tiresomely cranky and never in doubt. Skepticism, restraint, a willingness to suspect judgment and to put oneself in the background — these would not seem to be a blogger’s trademarks.”

As you might imagine, those words did not go down well with my online comrades. The blogging world’s denouncements of Skube were swift and effective. This one was particularly sharp, and if public whippings are your idea of entertainment, it has links to other bloggers’ condemnations. Enjoy.

Taken together, though, the reactions made me wince. I know Skube, not well but casually, and he doesn’t deserve this all this. Thus I rise to speak on his behalf.

I’ll start by conceding one point: This wasn’t Skube’s finest hour. He has acknowledged in other places that he doesn’t much read blogs, including at least one specifically mentioned in his essay. That fact was a hanging curveball for his critics to swat out of the park. If you’re going to accuse bloggers of not doing much reporting, you need to be scrupulous about your own research. Dive into the blog world before you pop off about it.

In fact, after I read the blowback on Skube, I thought to myself, “Boy, the professor just got taken to school.” But after another reading of the back-and-forth, I realized that once you separate the message from the messenger, Skube’s point is undeniably true. The blog world could do with more reporting and research, and less volume on the opinion. Furthermore, the list of reporting triumphs by bloggers that is detailed in the anti-Skube screed I link to above seems pretty thin when you consider the number of bloggers working. It’s hard to get an accurate count of the number of U.S.-based blogs these days, but it’s reasonable to say it’s in the tens of millions. In contrast, there were fewer than 55,000 people working in the newsrooms of American daily newspapers in 2005, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. And that number has only dropped since then. C’mon, Skube’s point has the ring of truth. Most bloggers are diary-keepers, wannabe pundits, linkmasters or hobbyists focused on a particular pastime. Real, shoe-leather journalism is the rare exception, not the rule.

Ultimately, I think the true rift here is one born of tone and respect. Skube is old breed, both in his approach to the craft of journalism and in his writing, which has a mannered, Victorian feel to it. I visited his class at Elon University one day earlier this year, and there were moments when it felt like I was in the presence of an English headmaster from another century. He emphasizes the fundamentals. I suspect that his attitude as a teacher of journalism is similar to that of an art teacher who declares, after a student announces his intent to become an abstractionist like Picasso, “Fine, but you’ll learn to draw properly first.”

Personally, I like the verve of the writing and comment in the blog world. But the best of it comes from people who were taught to draw properly.

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