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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (69162)	9/11/2004 4:49:05 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 793911

The problem is that bloggers can’t fill the gap. They have no direct sources of news; they are still reliant on somebody else’s reportage. They can criticize, but they can't originate news. Bloggers add another source of marginally informed commentary, usually poorly thought out - a necessary result of the stream-of-consciousness blog format. You don’t generally find finished, coherent thought in that sort of stream, the format simply isn’t conducive to it. You wouldn't by any chance be a journalist, would you Steven? You have made a rather large number of assumptions about who bloggers are and aren't, about their skill sets vis-a-vis those of reporters, about their willingness and ability to collect facts, and the willingness of people with facts to talk to them, which I really do not think are entirely justified. As it happens, we have an excellent case study to examine, which is live and on-going at this very moment. Exhibit A: the current fight over CBS News' 60 Minutes story, which produced 4 previously unknown memos purporting to date from 1972 and 1973, and to be written by George Bush's TANG CO, which have disparaging things to say about then Lt. Bush's performance and privileged political status. CBS linked PDF facsimilies of the memos on its website. Within hours, one of those amateur bloggers noticed something that had aparently escaped the notice of the pros at CBS: the memos looked like they had been written in Microsoft Word, not on a typewriter as you would expect from a 1972 Air Force memo. From there, it was off to the races, as blogdom began to examine the facsimiles in detail. ABC News 'The Note' has a good timeline of how the story took off from there, and the state of interaction between the blogs and the mainstream journalists. abcnews.go.com You may have to scroll down in The Note because it doesn't provide permalinks. Here are links to the bloggers involved in this story. Please note: two of the most prominent blogs, Powerline ( powerlineblog.com )and Beldar ( beldar.blogs.com ), are written by lawyers. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs is a web designer with many years experience in layout and publishing ( littlegreenfootballs.com ). Hugh Hewlitt ( hughhewitt.com ), who is a professional journalist and a blogger (will that get more respect from you?) has been all over this story too. And of course Glenn Reynolds, who is a law professor ( instapundit.com ) Meantime, CBS has their story and they're sticking to it, cbsnews.com despite the retraction of support by the witness whom CBS called their "trump card" just a few hours ago. abcnews.go.com This is a most interesting case for judging the performance of bloggers vs. pro journalists. The best of blogdom is working on this one. Why don't you have a look at their performance? The contest is perhaps unfair, as I do not consider Dan Rather the best of journalism, though he certainly counts as one of the most famous journalists. However, he has just staked himself to an untenable position, defending a story that was based on rather obvious forgeries. He is currently conducting a Nixon defense, pure stonewall, everybody should just believe CBS news despite the evidence of their eyes. It will be veeerrry interesting to see how this one plays out.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (69162)	9/11/2004 5:23:06 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 793911

What I see – and I’ve looked – is the evolution of what could be called blog circles – groups of bloggers with similar perspectives who link to each other’s sites and to news stories selected to support the prevailing bias, reinforcing their own prejudices and allowing readers to maintain the illusion of multiple sources without leaving their ideological comfort zone And this differs from professional newspapers exactly how? Everybody has a bias problem. Bloggers generally admit it. Newspapers and other MSM generally deny it. Bloggers cannot replace a highly professional newspaper. However, we have few of these, and the ones we had are degenerating in response to the changes in the newscycle and political pressures. What bloggers can do is fact-check each other and the newspapers - and do it fast. Mostly, they check the secondary sources, but they are starting to turn into reporters as well, and collect independent data.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (69162)	9/11/2004 5:31:38 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793911

The problem is that bloggers can’t fill the gap. They have no direct sources of news; they are still reliant on somebody else’s reportage. They can criticize, but they can't originate news Almost all "news" is a rewrite of somebody else being out on the sharp end. Same as most businesses. You need somebody to frame and analyize the raw data that comes in from the foot soldiers. The blogs are in exactly the right place to do that. They broke "Rathergate." The old media didn't have the insight. The three guys who did it are sharp working lawyers in Minneapolis who write "Powerline." You are going to change your opinion of blogs over time. It reflects an "old line" journalism attitude.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (69162)	9/11/2004 5:42:58 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793911

What I see – and I’ve looked – is the evolution of what could be called blog circles – groups of bloggers with similar perspectives who link to each other’s sites and to news stories selected to support the prevailing bias, reinforcing their own prejudices and allowing readers to maintain the illusion of multiple sources without leaving their ideological comfort zone. That is happening. But you have to seek them out and make your own "blog circle" from them. The best bloggers all find, link and refer to each other constantly. By subject. I have sorted though several hundred bloggers to find the best political ones. They all know, link and discuss each other's material. It is an evolutionary process, as people drop out of the top tier and others rise up. I end up with the best political info on the planet. Thursday's Rathergate breakout proved it.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (69162)	9/11/2004 1:13:18 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793911

The problem is that bloggers can’t fill the gap. They have no direct sources of news; they are still reliant on somebody else’s reportage. They can criticize, but they can't originate news. Bloggers add another source of marginally informed commentary, usually poorly thought out - a necessary result of the stream-of-consciousness blog format. You don’t generally find finished, coherent thought in that sort of stream, the format simply isn’t conducive to it. Jeez, Steven, the bloggers are simply people like you and me with an idea, a kernel of knowledge, and a viewpoint. It is up to the reader to reach his own conclusions. And, as far as your "bloggers not having direct sources of news" criticism is concerned, you forget that bloggers are not professional journalists. But they serve a very useful function, namely, the keep the mass media honest. Trust me, the quality of the fact-checking by the mass media is going to go up dramatically as a result of Rather being crucified by the bloggers. Is that such a bad thing?