Collecting Scalps
Slant POint blog
By Scott S on Blogging
Kevin Drum, a paid Lefty blogger for Washington Monthly's Political Animal column, sounds off on Easongate with the intention of delivering a warning to bloggers against merely "collecting scalps," but he fails to acknowledge the depth of this "trend."
washingtonmonthly.com
In fact, Drum dismisses bloggers' trumphs as "modest." I'm tempted to call him a sore loser, but that would feed into his opinion this is just a big game. What is really happening is a leading voice of Lefty bloggers is denying the importance of accountability and truth.
Drum must assume journalism has never been out to get anyone, and that the idealistic search for truth was actually accomplished by big media before the rise of blogging. I would argue rather that blogging was an inevitability from the failure of large media to come even close to that ideal, combined with a momentous opportunity rendered by technological advancements, specifically the internet.
Hugh Hewitt likened this in his book Blog to the printing press being used to distribute the Bible to the common people, tearing its monopoly away from the then-corrupt Catholic Church.
While Drum is not wrong to issue a warning against abusing this power (which I discuss in the previous post), he is dead wrong that all bloggers contribute is causing people to be "viciously hounded out of their jobs."
And while decrying the positive, he fails to recognize the most positive aspect of blogging: defense of your beliefs. The support of 2004 Presidential candidates comes to mind as well as the defense of the military and defense of civil rights, but perhaps the most significant collective American defense was when we were called "stingy" by the UN during the Asian tsunami. Bloggers delivered precise and profound accounts of American charity, proving we are indeed the most generous nation on earth.
So what is it, Drum? Are resignations at the hands of bloggers worse than that of Nixon himself at the hands of big media? Are you saying the investigative efforts of bloggers pale in comparison to the immortalized Woodward and Bernstein? Or, may we say as they said then, that the crime was in the coverup?
Eason Jordan may have escaped had he released the video. Rather may have escaped had he admitted the truth.
Political scalps may be the stories told by blogger history, but if all you do is skim the table of contents, and fail to read the chapters, you will indeed think bloggers are knife-wielding natives. And you'll miss entirely the depth and devotion bloggers have to principles that transcend the lines of all media.
I suggest those interested in these stories cast aside Drum's Cliffs Notes version of blogging accomplishments and read some other blogs. |
