Whap! Whap!

WHAP.

Definition 1: The sound made when the digital revolution hit clueless newspaper executives upside the head.

Definition 2: A sound made when increasingly liberal readers throw down in disgust their increasingly conservative newspapers.

Definition 3: Contraction of “Wha’ happened?,” a classic line from a Christopher Guest movie and the dumbfounded response of newspaper executives to conditions described in Definitions 1 and 2 above.

Definition 4: According to Merriam-Webster, a derivation of the Middle English whappen, which means to throw violently and which sounds suspiciously like “Wha’ happened?” See Definitions 2 and 3.

Put them all together and you get WhapWhapWhapWhap.com, a silly and completely unsuitable name for a website.

Hence WhapWhap.com.

And while politics and technology might not seem to go together, I beg to differ. It’s the publishing world’s overwhelming conservatism that has blinded it to the threats and opportunities of technology. Editors and publishers as a group can’t even imagine a world any different from today’s, let alone help create one.

UPDATE: Now we can add Scott McClellan’s book title, “What Happened,” to the list of definitions as they pertain to newspaper folks. Thanks, Scott!

About the author: Ken Bilderback spent the last 24 years of his career at The Columbian in Vancouver, WA, in many different roles, including news editor, newsroom technology coordinator (or something like that) and finally as new media manager, launching columbian.com in 1994. The newspaper industry breathed a collective sigh of relief when he retired to a little slice of Freeburb paradise to raise chickens and build barns.

p.s.: If you really want to know what makes me tick, check out some of my other sites: www.TheSashabawProject.com, www.BumAlums.com, www.MyKittysEyes.com and www.KrisandKen.com. I dare you.