BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
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Monday, May 09, 2005
HONORING ELIZABETH NEUFFER.
The International
Women's Media Foundation
tomorrow will present a program on global human rights in honor of
Elizabeth Neuffer, a Boston Globe reporter and author who was
killed while covering the war in Iraq two years ago.
The first annual Elizabeth Neuffer
Forum on Human Rights and Journalism will be held from 10 a.m. to 2
p.m. at the John F. Kennedy Library, in Dorchester. The event is open
to the public, but space is limited and reservations are required.
For more information, click here.
BLOG IS A PLURAL. (With
apologies to Rory
O'Connor.) There are
problems, shall we say, with any essay on blogging that suggests
Josh
Marshall, Matt
Drudge, and
Ana
Marie Cox are doing roughly
the same thing. Okay, they all use computers, so I suppose that's a
start.
But Adam Cohen's rumination
on blogworld in Sunday's New York Times, though earnest and
well-intentioned, never achieves liftoff - and it's precisely because
he seems to think blogging is some sort of new and revolutionary
development. It's not. Rather, blogging software is simply a tool
that makes it easy for anyone to write and publish on the Internet.
(And yes, I know the Drudge Report isn't really a blog, although
Drudge has a blogger's sensibility.)
The biggest problem with Cohen's
piece is that he laments the lack of standards among bloggers as
though these folks comprise some sort of unitary whole. But think
about the three examples he offers that I've cited:
Marshall is a professional
journalist who writes for mainstream publications such as the
Atlantic
Monthly. The
stock-in-trade of his Talking Points Memo blog is his journalistic
reliability, combined with a moderately liberal point of
view.
Drudge is an
amateur-turned-professional (in the sense that he gets paid) gossip
columnist who jokes that he's right about 80 percent of the time.
Well, that's probably as good a track record as most gossips, and
it's certainly been enough to get his readers to keep coming
back.
Cox's Wonkette blog combines
semi-accurate Washington gossip with a wicked sense of humor and an
obsession with anal sex. Cohen's notion of "standards" is ridiculous
in such a context - either you find Cox entertaining or you don't.
(Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.)
Cohen shows how far off he is with
his closing:
Bloggers may need to
institutionalize ethics policies to avoid charges of hypocrisy.
But the real reason for an ethical upgrade is that it is the right
way to do journalism, online or offline. As blogs grow in readers
and influence, bloggers should realize that if they want to reform
the American media, that is going to have to include reforming
themselves.
But bloggers who practice
journalism already have ethics they can follow: those of journalism.
Those engaged in partisan politics have a different set of standards,
as do those who write about their cats or whatever. Drudge isn't
hurting Marshall's credibility just because they both happen to write
online any more than the Weekly
World News' headlines
about Bat Boy and alien invasions harm the reputation of all
newspapers. And needless to say, the legitimate press has done more
to damage its own standing in recent years than any outside force
could manage.
Technorati.com
is tracking nearly 9.8 million blogs, which is far more than the
New York Times' total circulation. Granted, that's ridiculous.
But still, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of regularly updated
blogs out there, most written by amateurs who might have some
interesting things to say about media and politics, but who can
hardly be expected to conduct her- or himself like a reporter for the
Times. Just as journalism provides value that
bloggers can't, so, too, many bloggers bring something to the table
that professional journalists can't: passion, a talent for personal
observation, and in many cases deep expertise in one or two
subjects.
Recently, Los Angeles Times
media columnist David Shaw took a beating for what could properly be
described as a rant against bloggers. The piece has disappeared into
the paper's paid archives, but Jack Shafer's summary
seems fair and accurate; that is, Shafer gives Shaw what he
deserves.
Cohen's piece isn't as
ill-considered as Shaw's, but it doesn't add much to the
conversation, either. Blogs are like everything else: most of them
are worthless, some are pretty good, and a tiny few are wonderful
beyond description. That has nothing to do with the "blogosphere" (a
word I detest, mainly because it lumps everyone in together). It's
just life.
posted at 1:24 PM |
3 comments
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link
3 Comments:
The deifnition of hypocrisy: lecturing others on journalistic ethics without disclosing: 1. The Jayson Blair fiasco, 2. The apology for WMD reporting, and 3. unethical reporting on The Wen Ho Lee (for which the NYTimes also was forced to apologize).
What Cohen - and his NYTimes editors - ignore is the fact that the NYTimes (and most of the Mainstream Media) claims to be things that blogs are not: comprehensive ("all the news that's fit to print"), objective, and non-partisan. This is the real hypocrisy that bloggers expose regularly.
Perhaps that is why Gallup Poll on Blogs shows that: "Monthly-plus readership of blogs is 21% among 18- to 29-year olds, 16% among those 30 to 49, 14% among those 50 to 64 and just 7% among those 65 and older.... The age gap in blog reading is particularly noteworthy because it is a complete reversal of the typical age pattern gap for news consumption. Gallup finds Americans' use of all traditional news media to be positively correlated with age. (For instance, only 32% of 18- to 29-year-olds read a local paper every day, versus 61% of those 65 and older)
The New York Times, on the other hand, like the rest of the old-line media, keep losing readers. It is unbecoming for an old Grey Lady to be so patronizing, hypocritical, and condescending, isn't it?
Bake McBride
The Elephant in the Blogroom.
Adam Cohen and the NYTimes are pushing their standard self-serving BS, acting as if they possess the moral and ethical standing to sermonize about "journalistic ethics."
Charles Manson has no credibility on the subject of non-violence.
Cardinal Law has no credibility on the subject of sexual ethics.
David Duke has no credibility on the subject of civil rights.
Ken Lay has no credibility on the subject of corporate accountability.
And likewise, the Corporate Media and its innumerable flunkies have no credibility on the subject of journalistic ethics.
The NYTimes allowed Judith Miller to knowingly publish on its front page falsehoods about Iraq's WMDs. At the same time they let Bill Safire promote the Mohammed-Atta-in-Prague hoax in numerous op-editorials.
The Washington Post promoted the Pvt. Jessica Lynch Hoax, USA Today just fired another reporter for plagiarism, commentators have been caught taking payola from the Bushies, Dan Rather left in disgrace, and Bob Novak exposed an undercover CIA agent (Novak has no shame, hence he has not left in disgrace).
The fact is that the Corporate Media and its army of whining whores failed to get the biggest story in a generation: the sham behind Bush's Iraq invasion.
What good are they if they can't get that right?
They are scared witless by Bloggers whose generally superior accuracy, more diligent research and willingness to cover stories that don't "sell" puts the Corporate "experts" to shame. And if you can count on anything, it is for the Corporate Media to attack that which it fears.
The first nickel I ever made was delivering newspapers so I have a soft spot for their plight.
But it's so clear MSM are in big trouble.
I recieved an e-mail a few weeks back from an old broadsheet asking me to revisit their web page:kind of pathetic. I don't really care what happens to Comm. Co's but jobs will always be on the line and that is a concern to be worried about.
* I always thought Wonkette was more concerned with booze and free dinners than anal
MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
