The Blog Mob

Wall Street Journal ^ | 20 Dec. 2006 | Joseph Rago

[RKV]

Blogs are very important these days. Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has one. The invention of the Web log, we are told, is as transformative as Gutenberg's press, and has shoved journalism into a reformation, perhaps a revolution.

The ascendancy of Internet technology did bring with it innovations. Information is more conveniently disseminated, and there's more of it, because anybody can chip in. There's more "choice"--and in a sense, more democracy. Folks on the WWW, conservatives especially, boast about how the alternative media corrodes the "MSM," for mainstream media, a term redolent with unfairness and elitism.

The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.

More success is met in purveying opinion and comment. Some critics reproach the blogs for the coarsening and increasing volatility of political life. Blogs, they say, tend to disinhibit. Maybe so. But politics weren't much rarefied when Andrew Jackson was president, either. The larger problem with blogs, it seems to me, is quality. Most of them are pretty awful. Many, even some with large followings, are downright appalling.

Every conceivable belief is on the scene, but the collective prose, by and large, is homogeneous: A tone of careless informality prevails; posts oscillate between the uselessly brief and the uselessly logorrheic; complexity and complication are eschewed; the humor is cringe-making, with irony present only in its conspicuous absence; arguments are solipsistic; writers traffic more in pronouncement than persuasion . . .

[RKV]

M$M editor in denial. Considering the state of print and video journalism in the world today, many (most) of the negative comments about blogs apply to the M$M.

"Certainly the MSM, such as it is, collapsed itself. It was once utterly dominant yet made itself vulnerable by playing on its reputed accuracy and disinterest to pursue adversarial agendas. Still, as far from perfect as that system was, it was and is not wholly imperfect. "

Bottom line - editorial jobs in the media are going to be harder and harder to find. And deservedly so.

[Red Badger]

Blog Mob? BLOB?............

[A Strict Constructionist]

"The larger problem with blogs, it seems to me, is quality. Most of them are pretty awful. Many, even some with large followings, are downright appalling."

I think that he has just described the MSM. If they believed in a fair and balanced reporting of the news they would not be in as much financial trouble. The truth shall set you free.

[Congressman Billybob]

Someone who cannot distinguish between excellent writing and sloppy writing on blogs, should not be in journalism at all, traditional or electronic. Wade through the garbage and find what is worthwhile. This applies to all forms of communications, including the Wall Street Journal.

The writer seems a little deficient in introspection, as the MSM generally is when commenting on its upstart competition.

Congressman Billybob

Latest article: "Where Little Cable Cars Climb Halfway to the Stars"

[RKV]

Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle. Black ... Heh.

[RKV]

Yep. Getting good information never was easy. For my part, I find journalists I trust, and pay attention to them. Burn me once, and you are unlikely to get a second chance (unless you fess up early and clean up your act). I'll take Claudia Rosett, Michelle Malkin, Michael Yon, Charles Johnson, etc. and stack them up against any set of M$M reporters you could name.

[mewzilla]

If this guy had been around a couple of hundred years ago, he'd've had hissies about broadsides.

[RKV]

Yep. If you read historical newspapers (and as a History major, I read more than a couple of them) they have similar problems to today's journalism - bias, poor investigative skills and lousy writing.

[A Strict Constructionist]

A much more succinct way of putting it. Well done.

[mewzilla]

While some of the broadsides were brilliant...

[Just another Joe]

A summary for those too busy to read through 1,014 words.

Blogs are very important these days. Folks on the WWW, conservatives especially, boast about how the alternative media corrodes the "MSM," for mainstream media, a term redolent with unfairness and elitism.
Journalism requires journalists. The larger problem with blogs, it seems to me, is quality.
The blogs must be timely if they are to influence politics. We rarely encounter sustained or systematic blog thought--instead, panics and manias; endless rehearsings of arguments put forward elsewhere; and a tendency to substitute ideology for cognition.
This cross-referential and interactive arrangement (speaking of hyperlinking and such things), in theory, should allow for some resolution to divisive issues, with the market sorting out the vagaries of individual analysis. Not in practice. Because political blogs are predictable, they are excruciatingly boring.

[norwaypinesavage]

"Journalism requires journalists"

In the author's definition, a "Journalist" is one who chooses his vocation early, and spends years immersed in the biases of his field. After at least a decade of HS classes, J School classes, Cub Reporter roles, and editor indoctrination, he is ready to be called a "Journalist". The farmer, engineer, teacher, laborer, or housewife who writes will not be called a "Journalist". Yet, it is the farmer, engineer, teacher, laborer, or housewife who write who are now redefining the truth. The "Journalist" no longer controls the agenda of this nation. And the "Journalists" are frightened.

[RKV]

Journalists should be frightened by new forms of reporting - because they have been lazy and have not adapted. Evolutionary competition is a real b!tch. The M$M can 1) adapt and survive, or 2) join the dinosaurs. Right now it looks like option 2. Which is no more than they deserve.

[Excellence]

BLOB is already taken.

http://www.edreform.com/index.cfm?fuseAction=siteSearch

[Thombo2]

Another lame "editorial" lambasting the blogosphere.I imagine the author longs for a return to the "good old days" when the three networks and the big daily papers,NYTimes,LATimes,etc had an absolute monopoly on the news.Get used to it,there's no turning back now.

[Paridel]

Someone who cannot distinguish between excellent writing and sloppy writing on blogs, should not be in journalism at all, traditional or electronic.

I can empathize a bit with his position here. I am appalled by the poor quality I find on most blogs. Of course there are some truly excellent ones out there, but often they are terribly hard to find.

A bigger problem for me is the blogs that are mostly good. The writing isn't bad, the opinions are pretty good, but the fact checking is only 90%. I have been bitten pretty hard a few times by reading blogs, doing a little preliminary checking on my own which seemed to support the blogs facts, and then trying to talk to democrat friends about the problems with their political beliefs.

It only takes a few facts that are slightly off to convince someone you are unreliable. I have a terrific memory, and I've had to avoid a lot of blogs to prevent myself from remembering something that is only almost right.

-paridel

[RKV]

If I may offer a suggestion as how to locate top quality blogs - take a look here (links or traffic indicators are very helpful IMO). http://truthlaidbear.com/ecosystem.php

[RKV]

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Good discussion here:

Opinion Journal: Bloggers are a Mob -- 'Written by fools to be read by imbeciles' ^