edfern is the family name of a cartoon character from the strip Doonesbury. This name can be tracked as originating from Scotland. I'm astounded by today's Doonesbury episode as Gary Trudeau follows Rick Redfern and his attempt to deal with unemployment. Rick is a journalist, but he isn't covering unemployment as a news story. He was let go from his job at the Washington Post and now finds himself at the mercy of the blogging community. My main interest about this is plot line is how he still manages to retain admittance to news conferences. I believe Gary Trudeau is on the verge of adjusting his characters to conform to ongoing battle between journalism and blogging?
I can't begin to tell you I've always been a fan of Doonesbury. It's how and why I'm so interested in politics. I even brood over the fact that his name has a nice ring to it, he married a news anchor and he helped bring fame to gonzo journalism.
That I think ferns are cool probably has very little to do with my attachment to his strip. It's not that I dislike flowering plants. I'm just fascinated with Maidenhair ferns and gradually began to fancy horsetail ferns and pond ferns. Now I even appreciate Redferns because I think I can see the message Trudeau is trying to send to his readers. Journalists lose their jobs as bloggers increase. In previous episodes involving Rick, some of his acquaintances suggest that he start blogging. Is this how he has found himself in a news conference room? It's obvious that that's the reason why nobody is paying much attention to his questions. He's either acting as blogger, or he acting as a finished journalist. At first I thought, this guy is probably still working at the Washington Post—maybe he's finishing off the week—and he finds himself in a room filled with bloggers. I'm not too sure who he's covering, but whoever it is, they obviously don't have time to answer the questions of a print journalist when rumor has it that bloggers are stealing readers away from newspapers.