I’ve only seen the cut down interview, so clearly missed the feeling in the room over the course of an hour, but I have to say that I didn’t find her particularly annoying at all. Sure, perhaps she misjudged what the audience wanted, but all I really saw was that she was trying to have a relaxed conversational interview with someone… and that someone was monosyllabic and uncharismatic. The one thing I’ve realised over the years is that, when it comes to interviewing, it takes two to tango. When an interview goes badly, the interviewee is as much at fault as the interviewer (anyone remember Christopher Lloyd and Anne Bancroft on Wogan?).

So why go after Sarah Lacy?

Well, I wonder if it has to do with her gender? When you Google Sarah Lacy, the second result is a Valley Wag piece on her entitled “Smoking Sarah Lacy”: “… there’s one salient fact about Sarah Lacy that most commentators are way too politically correct to mention: she is the hottest reporter in the Valley. No, make that the hottest reporter in the tech world – ever.” The hottest reporter in the tech world. Hmmmm. Not the smartest? The best writer? So, her value is in her ‘cuteness’? Am I getting that right?

Have a look at the results for Mark Zuckerberg – do you notice how there’s nothing about his gender nor his sexual attractiveness (or lack thereof) nor is there a photo of him sticking out any of his ‘sexually alluring’ body parts? Interesting that. Well, it isn’t really interesting. That’s just how things are.

Now, as any titted geek knows, gender is still a big deal, even in this world without bodies. If it had been a man interviewing Zuckerberg, I’m 100% positive we wouldn’t have heard a thing about it other than, perhaps, ‘Zuckerberg’s a bit boring, isn’t he?’ As it is, I think Sarah has been criticised for being, well, female.

Jeff Jarvis has a good, non-sexist take on it:”At the end of it all, I have no doubt that Lacy is an experienced and talented journalist, that she respects Zuckerberg, that she was trying to put him at ease, and that she was going after the stories she found interesting. But that’s the essence of her problem: She didn’t stand back and remind herself that her job was to enable a conversation not with her but with the crowd about what they found interesting.”

This is more like it, someone who understands what they are talking about who can think clearly without resorting to lowest common denominator thinking. I find it interesting that he and Jemima are both professional journalists and are the only ones who have an informed and level-headed take on it. In the end, it just seems like Sarah Lacy’s interviewing technique, which may work very well in an extended interview for a magazine, just wasn’t the right thing to do on the day for that Facebook fanboy audience. Not the end of the world.

Far, far too many bloggers- male and female, A-list and down- have no freakin’ idea what ‘journalism’ actually means (I promise I won’t go off on one now about the supposedly important podcaster who told me that he doesn’t care about facts or fact checking). Nor do they seem to understand that just because someone can write in a newspaper, magazine or blog it doesn’t mean that they will automatically be a good interviewer in front of an audience, camera or mobile phone (resisting the urge to clear my throat knowingly). Citizen journalism has gone from being the Great New Media Hope to being a bunch of dumb loudmouths yapping and waving their cocks around (yes, boys, I mean you). When the mob rules, this is what you get: unfocused, ill-informed, biased sniping by huge numbers of people who actually think their opinion should mean something more than anyone else’s.

Is this the brave new world we’ve created?

*update* 29/10/08: To leave messages of support which will be sent directly to Jonathan, please click here

Johnathan Stephen Ross, your Facebook friend and mine, has left Facebook. Yesterday his status said something like ‘I am thinking of leaving Facebook because everyone seems to be bugging my wife with friend requests’. Hmmmm.

If you search for Jane Goldman on Facebook -she’s part way down the page with the red hair, for you non-Brits **EDIT** WAIT! I got to the end of writing this post and now she’s gone from Facebook, too. Well up until 2 minutes ago you could view her friend list, add her as a friend AND send her a message. Though her profile wasn’t viewable by anyone, she was leaving herself wide open to “pestering”… If getting friend requests from strangers was such a problem, why didn’t she limit the options available in the search ie not allow people to submit friend requests, not allow people to see her friends, not allow people to message her etc? Problem solved. But she decided not to take that option.

Whatever, it was enough of an annoyance to Jonathan for him to decide to leave. Facebook will be more rubbish without him.

*update* 29/10/08: To leave messages of support which will be sent directly to Jonathan, please click here

**EDIT** 16 January: Jonathan Ross has now left Facebook.

There’s been a lot of Jonathan Ross here recently. It went from me criticising his company’s YouTube policy, to him emailing me to explain their position, to me saying that position sucks, to him, personally, changing their policy, to everyone thinking that he rules and is a lovely geek.

He’s now joined Facebook. Think Wossy can outdo Fry’s Facebook-friendship madness? Go on, let’s try… befriend him.

My friendship was approved and then I thought, ‘Wait! This mightn’t be him.’ Of course, I wasn’t the only one who doubted. Yesterday he took a photo of himself, in a kidnapped stylee, saying hello to one of his doubters.

The photo was ‘backwards’ when he posted it

The floodgates opened and he was inundated with ‘friend’ requests. This morning he’d been so overhwelmed by friend requests that he turned off his ‘add friendship’ and started Stephen Fry’s Friendship Proxy Group.

Of course, I couldn’t help, but photoshop his photo… into a LOLFryz

Stephen Fry, the Lilley Allen of Facebook.