Close, But Still No Cigar

It's nice to have readers who care enough to send the very best.

From somewhere in Texas, Christina sent me this tidbit. And as much as I'd like to commend the L.A. Slime for at least trying to get it right, they still really just don't quite get it.

But they're getting closer, and I'll take all the positives I can get.

July 18, 2004

COMMENTARY

Bloggers Are the Sizzle, Not the Steak Convention seats do not turn Internet gossips into journalists.

By Alex S. Jones

The Democrats and the Republicans are inviting a limited number of bloggers — those witty, candid, irreverent, passionate, shrewd and outrageous Internet chroniclers — to their 2004 conventions. It's a gesture of respect for the growing influence of the blogosphere, and if ever there were events ideally suited to bloggers, the heavily scripted and tensionless conventions top the list.

I've been a delegate to a Texas Republican State convention. And though Alex is correct that what we see on teevee isn't filled with tension, let me tell you, the behind-the-scenes meetings in various caucus rooms, etc., certainly is.

But make no mistake, this moment of blogging legitimization — and temporary press credentials — doesn't turn bloggers into journalists.

Well, duh! First, I don't think most bloggers would want to be journalists. I mean, when respectable careers like being a piano player in a whorehouse are still available, well......guess it's time for me to look into some piano lessons.

Political conventions have become festivals of faux harmony and candidate image-building, which makes them marvelous targets for blogging's candor, intelligence and righteous wrath.

The blame for all of that resides squarely on the shoulders of traditional journalism. I'd say that if the blogosphere has focused on any one issue, it's the culpability of the press' malfeasence in propogating this homogenized view of things political. Especially the conventions.

If you'll remember, it was CNN's Executive Editor who finally 'fessed up to witholding news of Saddam's torturous ways in Iraq, justified (to them) only on their fear of "losing access". It's been said before, so I won't belabor it in excess here. What good is "access", if you won't report on what you've learned?

In CNN's case, to me they're no better than collaborators.

However, bloggers, with few exceptions, don't add reporting to the personal views they post online, and they see journalism as bound by norms and standards that they reject. That encourages these common attributes of the blogosphere: vulgarity, scorching insults, bitter denunciations, one-sided arguments, erroneous assertions and the array of qualities that might be expected from a blustering know-it-all in a bar.

Let's give this one some thought. Bloggers do add journalism to the views that they post online. Just as I'm referencing Alex's article here, most every rant I read in the blogs eminates from some story or another as reported in the traditional media.

What rips it though, is that said articles usually just ooze with a highly liberal viewpoint, condensending at best to the right, more often being dismissive or altogether ignoring any other viewpoint but the writer's.

And when I read Stephen Den Beste, Juliette, Bill Whittle, Citizen Smash, La Shawn Barber and others, well I just don't see the "vulgarity, scorching insults, bitter denunciations, one-sided arguments, erroneous assertions" of which Alex speaks of from his lofty perch in the gutters of the West Coast's least credible rag.

For those qualities, you only have to read me, Acidman or the Anti-Idiotorian Rottweiller.

But we do bring more to the table than does a "blustering know-it-all in a bar." That's right. We bring facts; something the traditional press would do well to emulate.

Both parties will have spent millions on their conventions in order to make their best case to the American people, and they hope that the mainstream media will simply turn on the cameras and step back. One could even make a good argument that at conventions the media should just shut up and get out of the way, so that the message could go out — for once — unfiltered and unexamined. Even in this year of high contentiousness, the mainstream media have already announced that there won't be anything like gavel-to-gavel news coverage, and they will probably be gentle in their reporting.

To a degree, both parties work hard to make "their best case". But in reality, both parties do their damndest to manipulate the traditional media, and they do that quite well, indeed. Now, the mainstream media might be a herd of running liberal lapdog suckups, but they do, to a degree, resent being played by by the parties at the convetions. Problem is, they resent it less from the donks than they do from the G.O.P., and such is readily evident in their coverage and commenteary.

Blogs call them on that, and rightly so.

But frankly, this is where Alex gets it right. We would all be better served if the media did in fact just turn the cameras on and then just shut the fuck up!

And the lack of gavel-to-gavel coverage to me, borders on the criminal.

Mark my words. I predict that the traditional media will highlight mostly the best from the donk convention, and only the worst from the G.O.P. More or less, I'm gonna be right on this one.

Presumably many Americans, especially young ones, will look for something with more spice and feistiness, which means they may well be looking at blogs and no doubt adding their own kibitzing via the medium's famed interactivity. This can be fun, and it can also be important. It was political bloggers and their fans who insulted and harassed and eventually embarrassed the major media into paying attention to the comments suggesting racism that Mississippi's Sen. Trent Lott made at South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party. Media coverage forced Lott's resignation as Republican leader in the Senate, but it was bloggers who badgered the media until they did their job.

It will be most interesting to see which bloggers are finally credentialed at the conventions. If none but the MTV-ish blogs such as WonkSlutette are representative of the bloggers invited, well, then Alex will prove to be prophetic. Conversely, if a more serious, erudite crew is enlisted, I'll predict that they'll hand the traditional media their collective asses.

Do you think that the Alphabet Media will allow that to happen? No predictions here; let's wait and see.

And yes, it is the blogs which are holding the media accountable as never before. But we're just seeing a glimmer of the beginnings of this effect. It remains to be seen if such scrutiny will have any impact on the traditional convention coverage.

Journalists increasingly read blogs to pick up tips. Blogs have become a network of capillaries that feed the nation's veins of information. For that reason, blogging's freewheeling, unfettered style makes it a juicy target for manipulation.

Here's where I really call bullshit on ol' Alex. For years, the traditional media has been the engine of pure manipulation. Skewed (liberally) "news" reports, leftist editing and editorials, the spiking of stories which show conservatism in a favorable light; the traditional liberal media has a long and inglorious track record of working to affect the masses on a daily basis.

And at the polls.

Speaking of polling, ask yourself when the last time the traditional media didn't try to pull an election leftward by means of "reporting" the results of polls based on loaded questions or handpicked samples.

Their malfeasence in this regard is shameful, at best. And their track record in their erstwhile "preditions" is abysmal. Witness the 1994 election results vs. their "predictions" if you will.

In these early days, blogging still has the charm of guileless transparency, which in the blogosphere means that everyone — no matter how cranky or hysterical — is presumed to be speaking his or her mind with sincerity. It is this air of conviction that makes bloggers such potent advocates.

Alex, you've just fallen into the trap of the condensention to the blogosphere that is so often decried by us bloggers. Ordinarily, this is where I'd tell you to F.O.A.D. But you're trying here, bro, you're really trying. So, I'll give you a pass here. (....so, how does the condensention feel, buddy? Yeah, I thought so.)

However, if history is any indicator, such earnestness will attract those who would exploit it, and they include some canny, inventive people. There is already talk of bloggers who would consider publishing items for cash and commercial blogs that tout products.

Well, if he's speaking of WonkSlutette, ol' Alex may have a point. But if the accrediting panel of either convention has even half a brain (questionable?), then such will clearly not be inviited or credentialed.

By the way, what talk, Alex? Among you and your media traditionwhores? From my end, I've been reading of nothing less than the rapt attention and anticipatory respect of whichever bloggers shall find themselves ensconsed at those conventions. And if some blogger does sell out for obviously commercial reasons?

I would not want to be a fly on the wall of that so-called blogger's e-mailbox.

Blogging is especially amenable to introducing negative information into the news stream and for circulating rumors as fact. Blogging's fact-checking apparatus is just the built-in truth squad of those who read the blog and howl loudly if they wish to dispute some assertion. It is, in a sense, a place where everyone has his own truth.

Amenable? You mean, like the traditional media's endless reporting of Joe Wilson's lies regarding the Plame affair? Like the media's endless mis-reporting of there being "no link" between Saddam and Al Queda, which meme is even now being thoroughly shredded by the facts of said connections now coming to light through the blogs?

Let me tell you, friends. Alex's agenda is made clear here; discrediting the bloggers well in advance of their posts, damning by faint praise their efforts before they even open their laptops.

I knew I smelled a traditional journalist rat here.

With the status conferred by convention credentials, blogging has arrived as an engaging, important new player in the information carnival. But should blogging displace traditional reporting and journalism, as some in the blogosphere predict it will, then the steak will have been swapped for the sizzle. It's better to have both.

Alex, there's hope for you yet. You see, we bloggers pretty much no wish to replace the traditional media. No, we serve mostly to entertain ourselves and our readers, and by extention, to keep the likes of you mostly honest, and mostly accurate.

And yes, it's better to have both. Just take care to give accurate, objective reporting.

Or you'll wind up wondering how you ended up on the inside of this tornado that is the blogosphere.

And don't say I didn't warn you.

Comments

[Indigo]

JUST WOW! Award-winning post here, Jim.