Media Grunt: Michael Bazeley

I can’t say I’m a big fan of Sarah Lacy. She seems just a tad too enamored with and starry-eyed over the Web 2.0 crowd she covers as a journalist. But now that the (almost) full video of her SXSW interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is out, it’s clear the negative reaction on blogs and Twitter was completely disproportionate to the crimes committed. Yes, Lacy’s mannerisms are somewhat annoying. Yes, her personal anecdotes about her encounters with Zuckerberg were pointless and made me cringe. And yes, her defensiveness was the worst way she could have reacted to a hostile crowd. But I thought most of her questions were thoughtful and well-informed. On the other hand, Zuckerberg’s answers were long-winded and largely uninteresting. The interview was nowhere near the “train wreck” that people made it to be. Nor did it descend into “chaos.” Lacy got mugged by the Twitter mob. Zuckerberg got a pass. Why?