Technology / internet 'Death by Blogging' Story Was Pure Hooey Sensationalist Times piece spun out of nothing, says Slate By Jason Farago, Newser Staff Posted Apr 8, 2008 11:27 AM CDT Copied Chris Smith, a sophomore at Ohio Dominican University, looks at his blog in his dorm room, Tuesday, May 1, 2007, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato) The relentlessly self-analytical blogosphere had a field day with the recent New York Times story on bloggers allegedly writing themselves to death. But as the Internet exploded with reaction to the paper's claims, a Slate critic points out that the dire trend story was backed up by the thinnest tissue of circumstance. "Let's not kid ourselves that any white-collar work ranks high among dangerous professions," sniffs Timothy Noah in Slate. The Times piece named only two bloggers who died, and the journalist prefaced the story with a "caveat-rich" disclaimer that he had no evidence that work-related stress caused either demise. Workers are 10 times more likely to die doing construction than blogging, which should give the Times reporter "some sense of proportion." (More internet stories.) Report an error