This is a title I’ve always wanted to use. It is a combination of ‘Understanding Media’ by Marshall McLuhan and ‘We the Media’ by Dan Gillmor. We are at an interesting point in media convergence as I talked about a little yesterday.

Today, I want to write about when there are bumps in the convergence. As I was reading through my Bloglines subscriptions, I found this entry from BL Ochman’s What’s Next blog: Humorless Garrison Keillor Threatens to Sue Blogger for Parody. I followed the links to Trial Of The Century: Keillor V. MNspeak.com.

In that entry, the blogger writes about telling Keillor’s lawyer, "First off, your client has no legal basis for this, and it's clear you're just trying to bully me. Secondly, this is going to make your client look extremely out of touch. I'll even write the headline for you: 'Liberal Comedian Sues Blogger.' Do you really want that?"

Well, the headline is spreading rapidly. The Wikipedia entry about Garrison Keillor has this: “Mr. Keillor picked up some negative press in September 2005 after suing the blog MNspeak.com over their parody "A Prairie Ho Companion" t-shirts. The dispute is ongoing.”

I take on this? Garrison needs to have the blogger on his show and have a good discussion. If Keillor won’t, perhaps Michael Feldman will. I can only imagine how Michael would approach this in a special, thanks the memo section.

Media companies need to think more carefully about how they deal with their viewers. Yesterday, I spoke about some TV stations thinking wisely about this. Today, we are looking at a very unwise reaction.