The Wrath of Tribble

Three months ago I and many others blogged about Ivan Tribble’s Chronicle of Higher Education essay on blogging and academic hiring. Shorter Tribble: “Don’t blog, because it’s kind of strange, my colleagues and I don’t quite get it, and your online self might come off as an unstable git.” Tribble responded to his critics yesterday in the Chronicle. He appears a touch miffed:

A lot can happen when you try to help some people land tenure-track jobs…. While not a scientific sampling by any means, what I saw suggested a trend worth warning others about. The ensuing outcry against my words of warning — both on The Chronicle’s discussion forums and on some blogs — gave me pause. Clearly I had offended a number of bloggers and hurt some feelings. For that I offer my apology to any who will accept it. But I still stand by my basic point…. As my original column made clear (and many amid the outcry reiterated) when it comes to blogging, I just don’t “get it.” That’s right, I don’t. Many in the tenured generation don’t, and they’ll be sitting on hiring committees for years to come. If that’s bad news, I’m sorry. But would it really be better if no one bothered to mention it? Shooting the messenger may make some feel better, but heeding the warning might help them get jobs.

Read the whole thing. My biggest disappointment in the piece is this section:

I stated that several committee members had reservations about hiring a blogger, which many respondents dismissed as irrational. I can’t speak for every committee member’s reasons, or every blogger’s good judgment. This revives the point that the issue is not the medium itself, but how it is used.

That’s funny, because what what truly annoyed me in Tribble’s initial essay were the motivations he assigned his committee members — and the concern then was pretty much the medium itself:

The content of the blog may be less worrisome than the fact of the blog itself. Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline for the world to see. Past good behavior is no guarantee against future lapses of professional decorum (emphasis added)

I’ll just repeat what I said back in June, because it echoes Tribble’s last few paragraphs:

To graduate students: I’d like to say that Ivan the Tribble is your classic piece of outlying data, but I can’t. The default assumption you should make is that the academy has a lot of people who share the Tribble worldview of the blogosphere. I seriously doubt that any amount of reasoned discourse will alter this worldview. So think very, very, very carefully about the costs and benefits of blogging under one’s own name.

For a more positive outlook, check out Henry Farrell and Brian Weatherson.