On the Blogosphere

[Annie]

links and comments found at site:

http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2004/09/it_is_too_a_rev.html

September 19, 2004
It is too a revolution
LA Times columnist Ben Wasserstein's analysis of Rathergate is about as accurate as anything one sees in the Times, which is to say not very. Wasserstein opines:

The bloggers who first cast doubt on the CBS memos deserve congratulations, gratitude and, of course, their time in the sun. This has been another moment of triumph for this dynamic and emerging field, and it will surely not be the last. But it has been a moment, not a revolution.
So? Wasserstein's column is an attack on a strawman. According to Wasserstein, bloggers are claiming that our medium will replace traditional media. Yet, the only evidence Wasserstein offers for the proposition that such claims are being made is a paraphrase of a Michelle Malkin column:
Michelle Malkin wrote a column, titled "The Death Cry of Snob Journalism," that she described (on her own blog, natch) as an "Old Media eulogy." Rather may become the second kill for bloggers; two years ago, bloggers' steadfast attention on Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's comments expressing nostalgia for segregation led to old-media coverage and, ultimately, Lott's resignation from his leadership post. ... But Malkin and other bloggers are getting ahead of themselves by asserting that the CBS disputed memos represent the death knell for traditional journalism.
In fact, no serious blogger claims our medium can replace the old media. Obviously, traditional journalists embedded in large corporations have resources most bloggers will never have. They have more time than those of us who work full-time in other occupations. They have multiple sources of long-standing. They have gobs of money and personnel to throw at a project. How could anyone seriously think a bunch of hobbyists could possibly replace the newsgathering powers of old media? In fact, not even Wasserstein's whipping girl - Malkin - makes such claims. Wasserstein's analysis thus consists of changing the subject by erecting a strawman of his own devising that he can then knock down.

When one actually goes and reads Malkin's column, one discovers that she never says the blogosphere will replace traditional media. Granted, there's some loose language about "death knells' and such. The gist of her argument, however, is that the blogosphere's function is to hold old media accountable for its errors and frauds:

With a click of the mouse and easy-to-use Web log software, Internet-savvy citizens across America and around the world are relentlessly unmasking the frauds of snob journalism as never before. The wall between the self-anointed press protectorate and the unwashed masses has crumbled.
Contrary to Wasserstein, there has been a revolution. A revolution of accountability. Hiding behind the First Amendment's skirts, the press has been practically immune to external sources of accountability. Much to the annoyance of old media, the blogosphere has proven that it can hold old media's feet to the fire. When Dan Rather resorts to forged documents provided by a known Bush hater or a columnist like Wasserstein misrepresents the facts (mischaracterizing Malkin's argument), the blogosphere provides an alternative source of information that exposes the lies, frauds, and biases of the old media. If that itsn't a revolution, what is it?

September 19, 2004

 

[musicman]

Wasserstien is whistling past the graveyard. Accountability poses some real problems for these propogandist frauds, and they're not liking it!