Newsroom culture wars and the Web

The print-Webgenerational divide turned ugly recently following a post by an intern supporting the Tampa Tribune's editor. I noted it here.

Now Jay Rosen of pressthink tries to psychoanalyze the full-throated anger and animosity that's roiling in our industry.

We’re in pain and looking for a place to direct our anger [one commenter says]. Some chose to beam that rage at the young woman who identifies with the female boss. She’s not one of us, not really “of” the newsroom. She’s cheering one of them: the executives who screwed up our thing. Them: the know-nothing, misspelling bloggers. Them: our unpaid or lowly paid replacements. Them: generaton whoop-dee-Net. She’s one of them. Her post proves it!

This is boundary policing, in which deviant behavior is denounced and community bonds are renewed in a casting out motion. You can hear worse than casting out in comments like this. It’s almost newspaper revanchism, an irrational demand to restore the Kingdom of Print, and the suggestion of a monstrous, industry-wide lie preventing that restoration.