A New York Times story on obsessive webloggers has some good quotes, some fun anecdotes and some truth to it based on my personal experience -- but I'd still argue newspapers are as dangerous an obsession.

Like many stories looking at a "hobby" from the outside, the Times piece makes insiders sound, well, peculiar. I decided to have some fun with it in my Harvard workspace, since it's easier to post there when I'm away from home--and it gave me an excuse to use a graphic I made for April 1st.

Yes, I'm indulging in parody... not my usual genre. The names have been changed to mostly fictitious ones and quotes have been adjusted slightly to make people laugh at the preconceived notions, unscientific generalizations and lack of rigorous research by Ms. Hafner in her May 27, 2004, story "For Some, the Blogging Never Stops."

It's probably unfair to suggest too much of a parallel between the lazy sourcing (two grad students as expert researchers) in her generally amusing story about obsessed bloggers and the less amusing Iraq stories The Times is now scrutinizing to see when and where they went wrong.

For more opinions on where Ms. Hafner went wrong, see Bloglines' collection of links referring to her story.
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