I’d written a few hundred words yesterday about the tempest in a teacup over Fred Vogelstein not wanting to interview Jason Calacanis over email but, by the time I found the time to post (around 10pm last night), the matter had already been amicably resolved.

For whatever reason, though, this struck something of a nerve amongst bloggers, pundits and media minded people and the matter spilled over in to today a bit. The usual suspects threw their hats in the ring, talking about transparency, ethics, the rules of the game being changed, we the media, etc. etc. Some of the chatter even manages to be interesting, particularly if you cotton to new media, and most of it raises a few good points to consider.

Then I read Jeff Jarvis’ bit from this morning, in his inimitable, infuriating style, and couldn’t help but stew the rest of the day. It’s not so much what he’s saying, because he does raise one or two interesting points, but his tone and “us vs. them” mentality that he can’t help but clamor on and on and on about.

To start off, he seems to hold the a-list bloggers involved, Dave Winer and Jason Calacanis, to a different standard than Wired reporter Fred Vogelstein. In the opening graf, Calacanis and Winer are “quite reasonable” for insisting on email only interviews, but Vogelstein is “a blunderbuss”[1] and “dogmatic” for standing his ground, while his Wired colleagues are described as “awkward” and “clumsy.”

His discussion points are, by now, a well trod litany of the evils of the mainstream media — journalists shouldn’t set the agenda any more, there’s too much focus on “gotcha moments,” lazy reporters get all the facts wrong and quote out of context and interviewees are doing the reporter a favor by even answering the phone[2] in the first place. Never mind that bloggers tend to amplify, not rectify, these complaints, the point gets lost amongst Jarvis’ constantly confrontational tone.

Of course, given Jarvis’ status as a darling of the newly “empowered” mediablogger set, it should come as no surprise where his allegiances lie. Still, though, I would hope that he’d at least strive for some level of balance, instead of falling for the all too easy trap of pandering.

Jarvis and other mediabloggers insist that news is becoming a conversation, a point I actually tend to embrace and even agree with. I just wish I could hear them over the din of the never-ending cannon fire.

[1] In an admittedly unfair dig at Jarvis, I can’t help but ask: has anyone used the word “blunderbuss” since the nineteenth century? And if he’s going to use such an anachronistic word, could he at least use it correctly?

[2] Pun intended