Some woman named Kathleen Parker, writing in the Chicago Tribune today:
I’ve never really understood the mainstream media’s animus against bloggers, especially when that animus couches itself in the argument: If the mainstream media disappeared tomorrow, most bloggers would be out of business. All bloggers do is recycle and chew over the news, people like Parker say.
And I say, yeah. So what? Why does this make you angry? At least someone’s reading the fucking news, and when bloggers connect their readers to news stories, then more people are reading the fucking news. (It also makes people like Parker angry when bloggers use the word “fuck”–they wish they could do it themselves.)
What really drives this MSM animus against bloggers is part of Parker’s column too, in a sideways fashion:
Well, say what you will about how hard newspapers work to get it right, but if more newspapers really worked to get it right, we might not be in Iraq today, George W. Bush would probably not be the president today, and there wouldn’t be nearly as many bloggers out there as there are today.
I do not know, personally, any other bloggers (although from the statistics, I actually must know other bloggers–if ten million new blogs have appeared in the time it took me to type this sentence, as we’re constantly being told, then everyone I know must have a blog they’re not telling me about). But I do read a lot of blogs, and I feel like I know something about reading authorial intent and motivation by looking at the text.
Most bloggers, I believe, are not driven by the desire to–or the delusion that they can–make a living at this; most are not driven by obsessive compulsion, either (although for a writer who claims to denounce the blogosphere’s inherent snark, that sure seems like a snarky comment for Parker to have made). Most bloggers are certainly not thinking of themselves as journalists.
I think most people blog because they want to participate in discourse. They (American bloggers, anyway, which is what I, and Parker, are talking about) were brought up in a country where their civics teachers told them they were all guaranteed the right to participate in the country’s discourse. So they went looking for places to do that, and found . . .
Nothing.
They found discourse closed by the babble-loop of the mainstream media and the money-wall of serious politics, and the way the babble-loop encircles the money-wall which supports the babble-loop which keeps people from getting to close to the truth about the money-wall, etc., etc., etc.
And then they found the internet, and soon after finding the internet, they found that an awful lot of what they were being told about the public life of their country was, well, not necessarily always a lie, exactly, but very rarely anything like the whole truth.
And so they set out to tell that truth, to fill in the gaps that the babble-loop left open, to get in through the chinks in the money-wall, and to participate in the discourse in the only way left open to average citizens in this country.
Speaking for myself, I started blogging in the spring of 2005 because I couldn’t bear to let four more years of George W. Bush happen without being on record as saying something about it. I’m blogging for my kids, so when they read in their history books about the presidency that destroyed America, I can bring them home and tell them, look boys–it’s all right here.
Would I like to have a few more readers? Absolutely–I assume that if I keep doing good work they’ll come, because far and away the best thing about the blogs is that they allow people to seek out what they like, to find their information where they want to, and (I believe fervently that blog-readers do this), to decide for themselves, critically and acutely, whether or not that information matches the truth they’ve been missing from the culture their entire lives.
Parker’s most serious critique seems to be (and chalk one up for her originality) that bloggers function in a hyperlinked echo-chamber that supplants actual discourse in favor of intertextual shouting:
Each time I wander into blogdom, I’m reminded of the savage children stranded on an island in William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies.” Without adult supervision, they organize themselves into rival tribes, learn to hunt and kill, and eventually become murderous barbarians in the absence of a civilizing structure.
To quote David Foster Wallace, “This is so stupid it practically drools.” And I wouldn’t even get into it, except it’s a slow news day (take a moment to chuckle at that one before I continue).
First, again just speaking for myself, I’m not sure by what I’m supposed to be particularly “spoiled.” By the mere ability to send my words out into public? By my vast readership (currently clicking along at about 100 folks a day worldwide)? By the way that other bloggers so habitually link to my brilliance (just google “moquol” and see how many times that’s happened in five months of blogging). I’m a lot of things, but spoiled ain’t one of them.
How about “undisciplined?” How about Judy Miller? How about Bob Woodward? How about Bill Keller? How about Matt Cooper? How about the fact that, for most of the mainstream media, the place they go for their discipline is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
Give me undisciplined any day, if “undisciplined” means unafraid. Of course, for Parker, it doesn’t–it simply means “unedited.”
And that’s only a problem when bloggers are irresponsible. And are there irresponsible bloggers out there? Yes, there are, but there are also a hell of a lot of irresponsible journalists. To wit:
It was irresponsible for journalists to allow an obvious partisan hack with no credentials to join them in the White House Briefing Room every morning without saying anything about it. Who said something about Jeff Gannon? The blogs.
It was irresponsible not to report on major revelations from the British government that the US had manipulated pre-war intelligence. Who told the world about the Downing Street Memo? The blogs.
It was irresponsible not to call out the country’s “paper of record” when it was publishing stories that other journalists knew were not true, stories that were written by a “reporter” who other journalists knew was actually an intelligence operative. Who took apart the Judy Miller story and put it in words the mainstream media could understand and then report on? The blogs.
It is irresponsible to pay absolutely no attention at all to a woman who has taken a courageous stand against the White House’s lies and barbarity, and not cover her story at all until you are forced to by, the blogs.
It is irresponsible to go to a nursing home in Florida, tighten the lens on the camera, and spend months on end reporting about the “thousands” of people who have come to protest the “murder” of Terri Schiavo, to cover this story as a medical debate when there was no medical debate to be had, and then to resort to covering it as an ethical debate after Republicans made fools of themselves by diagnosing the woman over videotape. Who called bullshit on the Terri Schiavo story? The blogs.
It is irresponsible to devote hours and hours and hours of coverage to a missing teenager at a time when the US death toll in an unwinnable war is spiraling and the president is hiding out at his ranch avoiding the woman who has taken the courageous stand that you’re ignoring. Who called the mainstream media on their own obsession/compulsion with Natalee Holloway? The blogs.
It is irresponsible to cover a president’s efforts to dismantle the most successful social program in history by taking dictation from the president and reporting his assertions about the dubious future of that program as if they were true statements, when they were in fact partisan bullshit. Who stopped the gutting of social security? The blogs.
It is irresponsible to kill or sit on stories just because they might be damaging to the president’s reelection campaign. Who did that? Did the blogs do that?
I could go on, but I think the point is made. If the blogs organize themselves into rival tribes, I say that’s far better than allowing yourself to be co-opted by the government to which you’re supposed to stand as a needed corrective. I’d a lot rather see warring tribes than one big cocktail party.
The ultimate answer to Parker’s utterly unoriginal complaint is this: if the mainstream media did their fucking job, if mainstream journalism wasn’t afraid to get a little red on its tooth and claw, then the world wouldn’t need a billion blogs. If the newspapers and TV networks hadn’t aided and abetted a criminal war, the repeated stealing of the presidency, and graft and corruption of the highest order (who broke the Randy Cunningham story? who first complained about Texas redistricting?), then I wouldn’t have to sit here spending hours and hours doing this.
But they did aid and abet these things, and so I am compelled, and so I am obsessed.
The MOQUOL–I Can Save You, America!
I hope you sent this article to her and her editor. This is a terrific compilation and analysis.
Good idea, Katie–maybe I’ll do that. And thanks.
Doc
And if she’s syndicated, maybe to those papers as well? I think it’s important to have a response.
What planet has this yahoo been hiding on?
Yeah, right, I devote substantial time to posting here and updating my own blog only to satisfy some deep inner need. That must be it.
When I do post excerpted information, I inevitably add my own commentary, such as it is, as well as additional links for articles and/or organizations related to the story. In this fashion, I’m able to impart an added benefit to the reader. I know that in citing the excerpts, underreported stories are able to receive the attention they deserve. Without blogs only the MSM would determine what is important, and this was part of the problem that gave rise to blogs.
Perhaps this individual is reading the wrong blogs. Or perhaps she is only making a ruckus to receive attention. In any event, we ought to invite her over here.
nobody in the top-down media simply offers opinions or punditry on previously-released news stories, without any actual “heavy lifiting” of their own.
the problem with jerks like ms. parker, is that she continuously equates blogging with reporting, when it is more along the lines of the op/ed page.
Very much appreciate your entry, Tom.
The lady is syndicated, so I read the same op-ed in my free morning paper, am-NY, on my way to work. Thanks for dissecting it.
Excellent diary! As I read along you kept stealing the thoughts right off my – umm – cerebellum. I especially loved your listing of the irresponsible acts at the end.
If she wants to know why she “don’t get no respect, no respect at all” she should go see the LA Times piece today about the post-Katrina reporting of the N.O. Times-Picayune that I did a diary on.
And here I thought snarks and whining were only the province of unpaid amateurs like us.
Also, in the 21st century, hyperlinking to someone’s press report can be the highest form of praise – it’s the equivalent of Harriet telling Ozzie “Honey, you really should read this story today in the paper…”
One wonders what percentage of hits on some stories at MSM webpages are due to internet cross-links in the blogs…
A final thought – while we do spread the news, our job is ultimately not to report it: We’re here to tell each other “This is something we need to do something about.” So we serve a function akin to the editorial page as much as the news page.
Obviously her relationship with the reality of blogs is tenuous at best. She sounds like one of those fundies whining about how oppressed they are just because other people exist.
First of all, Most Obsessive Compulsive would be a fun category — part of the problem with the MSM is that they don’t recognize any form of decent humor, adequately evidenced by the fact that so many of them seem to think the President is amusing in a “folksy” kind of way. Please, the man’s a dangerous moron who thinks mocking retarded people is funny.
Secondly, why is she so defensive? If she truly believes that her own field is the higher quality field by such a wide margin — somewhat in contradiction to the actual evidence but we all know the MSM’s relationship with actual evidence is also tenuous at best — then why is she so stressed out about bloggers? Is there no “real news” she could be covering, like, I don’t know, an illegal invasion and occupation or something?
And the repeated metaphors that infantilize us attempt to be deeply offensive but only succeed on a superficial level. They also demonstrate how little she’s really considered the subject. Of course there’s an adolescent quality to blogs. Pardon me when I respond thusly: Duh, lady. This is a brand new information medium. Ever read some of the first newspapers? Probably not, since that would entail, you know, actual research into the history of your own profession. Since news blogs are all only a handful of years old, having an adolescent quality is actually a sign of precociousness. At least, she better hope it’s precociousness, because the other thing it could be is rapid maturity and that’s a much bigger threat to the privilege she’s so desperate to hoard.
/rant
Well, maybe she’s at least partially right.
This may be unpopular, but it is true. The vast majority of bloggers are simply regurgitating what they read or hear in large newspapers or on CNN.
Also, I challenge anyone to click through an average blogroll and try to figure out where the hell 90% of these bloggers actually reside. Very often there’s absolutely no clue, because they’re so fixated on big, sexy national affairs (that they read in WaPo that morning) that they never even write about what’s going on in their own cities or states.
::shrugs:: Even a broken clock’s right twice a day.
I’m not lauding bloggers categorically, btw, only denouncing her categorical criticism of them. It’s my belief that there are both skilled & unskilled folks in just about every field, and that universalists & absolutists are often obnoxious as well as generally wrong.
Hey NYCO, I’m sorry for being catty in that earlier post. I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed today and have been grouchy all day.
I wasn’t making a straight-lined criticism of her essay with my post. I was mimicking her tone and style for effect. It was sarcasm.
My straight-line criticism would be something more like: The blogs I frequent don’t fit her characterizations, so my experience is very different than hers. I’d argue that it’s unfair (unfair at best, and possibly intellectually dishonest) to make the kinds of broad criticisms she does about a media that (for the moment at least) allows access to every voice attached to a body with ‘net capability. Blogging as a media is structurally different and the criticisms of it should account for that in order to be constructive, otherwise they’re just petty and pointless. To me, her piece reads as though she’s completely freaked out that her job is going to be made obsolete — or merely less prestigious, which she would perhaps consider the graver offense — by people she thinks aren’t as good as her. And this when really, the prestige is disappearing from her profession not because of anything to do with bloggers, but because a vast number of her colleagues are corporatist sellouts. Which is exactly why there are bloggers in the first place.
For the kind words and comments. As suggested above, I did send a copy of this post to the editor at the Chicago Tribune. I’m holding my breath until it changes journalism forever.
Doc
I’ll tell you why mainstream journalists are scared by the blogger phenomenon. (My opinion, of course; your mileage may vary.) I see two reasons.
First, bloggers aren’t afraid to call BS on an article. To just take one recent example, there was a recommended diary over on Big Orange yesterday refuting the claim — made by many news organizations — that Jack Abramoff was an equal-opportunity donor, giving money to Republicans and Democrats alike. The truth of the matter, as reported in that recommended diary and elsewhere, is that he did not personally give money to one single solitary Democrat. Even if you add in a degree of separation, he gave money to four times as many Republicans as Democrats — hardly an equal proposition.
So in other words, it goes way beyond calling some harried nine-to-fiver on an honest goof. The bloggers are making the media do their jobs right and not be able to get away with sloppy reporting or reporting by press release.
Second, even if there were no weblogs like E Pluribus Media that did their own reporting, blogs would be a worthwhile phenomenon for their sheer numbers and their ability to synthesize. For example a blogger reading a story about DeLay in today’s Houston Chronicle might be reminded of another story a few years ago that amplifies the first story, or gives it more depth. The more people doing this, the more connections can be made. Sometimes people will be way off the mark — but sometimes we can uncover some pretty amazing stuff (Jeff Gannon’s offline identity, for instance).
There are very few new ideas, and there’s very little new reporting. The real action happens when you take two ideas, or two stories, and combine them to make a new idea (or story) that didn’t exist before.
And the bit about “if mainstream media were to disappear tomorrow”? Complete and utter BS. It’s been true for a very long time that at best the news in newspapers takes second place to their primary function, which is to sell advertising.
bloggers actually report news that the mainstream media ignores or distorts. Some examples:
> the BooTribbers who went to Camp Casey,
> the BooTribbers who participated in the march in DC,
> the reports we continue to get at BooTrib re: the aftermath of Katrina.
In each of these cases, we got news that wasn’t being provided by the MSM. If the MSM ceased to exist, blogs would fill the information gap. And even, dare I say it, do a better job of reporting the facts.
If C-Span went off the air, can’t you imagine some Obsessive-Compulsives who would set up their wi-fi laptops in the Galleries above Congress and give a deeper meaning to the term “Live-Blogging”? What a hoot that would be! I’m sure there would be more than one from a variety of political persuations. Over time, people would compare their transcriptions and decide upon the most reliable provider. And other bloggers would pour over those transcriptions and sift the nuggets from the silt. And still others would write commentary on those nuggets.
Now, don’t you see what Ms. Parker’s problem really is? Bloggers could replace the MSM and put her out of a job!
gee, i thought it was really going to be about a new category suggestion for wampum’s koufax awards.
personally, i’m miffed that they haven’t added “best blog by a popular australian 60’s kid show animal friend.”