The co-founder of Salon.com tells the fascinating story of how a new medium—blogging—was born. 

Chicago Tribune Editor’s Choice

 SAY EVERYTHING

How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters

 by Scott Rosenberg

*Now Available in Paperback*

 “A wonderful read. Anyone who wants to know where blogs come from—and why they matter—should read this book. Rosenberg, who’s been doing new media from its very start, as well as writing about it, is the perfect person to tell this story.”

— Josh Quittner, editor at large, TIME

 “Elegantly accessible . . . This fair and fascinating account should delight.”

— Kirkus (starred review)

“Scott Rosenberg is the best defender blogging has ever had…He is poetic on blogging as a democratic thing. Say Everything is where I’d tell you to start if you want to understand where blogging came from, and why it’s important.”

— Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at New York University

You’ve heard all the arguments about blogging, pro and con. Blogs are a wondrous innovation, a key that has unlocked a vast treasury of self-expression and allowed underdogs everywhere to challenge giants. No, wait! Blogs are a scourge that is debasing journalism, undermining traditional authority, drowning us all in meaningless chatter, and destroying civilization as we know it.

Over the last dozen years, while everyone was arguing about blogging, the new medium came into its own. What started as the passion of a handful of geeky pioneers evolved into the pursuit of millions. That is the story Scott Rosenberg tells in SAY EVERYTHING: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters (Three Rivers Press; June 8, 2010; Trade Paperback $15.00). 

SAY EVERYTHING traces the effects of blogging on politics, business, the media, and our personal lives. Blogging, Rosenberg says, has created a new kind of public sphere—one in which we can think out loud together. And now that we have begun, he writes, it is impossible to imagine us stopping.

Close-ups of innovators such as Blogger founder Evan Williams, investigative journalist Josh Marshall (TalkingPointsMemo.com), exhibitionist diarist Justin Hall, outspoken software developer Dave Winer, “mommyblogger” Heather Armstrong, and others offer vital insights and warnings as we navigate the future of this medium. In addition to his portraits of blogging pioneers, Rosenberg answers questions like:

• Do blogs encourage us to reveal our true selves or tempt us to experiment with false identities? Is anonymity a boon or a curse? 
• Now that everyone can say everything, how do we find what matters? 
• Are blogs destroying traditional journalism—and can blogs replace those outlets?
• Is Twitter and social networking killing blogging? (See the author’s postscript to the book at WHAT IS THE URL?)

In SAY EVERYTHING Rosenberg chronicles the rise of the blog from obscurity to ubiquity, gives a spirited defense of a new medium, explores its seemingly limitless democratic potential, and hails bloggers as “curators of our collective experience.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Scott Rosenberg was a cofounder of Salon.com, where he long served as managing editor, and is the author of Dreaming in Code. In 2009 he won a Knight Foundation News Challenge grant to develop the MediaBugs project (mediaBugs.org). He blogs at WordYard.com.

ABOUT THE BOOK 

For more information about SAY EVERYTHING or Scott Rosenberg, please contact Emily Lyman in the Three Rivers Publicity Department at (212) 782-8351 or elyman@randomhouse.com.