Posted on 10/23/2005 12:18:04 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
T here's been a lot of excitement about blogs since they broke into public consciousness during the 2004 election. They are now growing at an astronomical rate. The blog search engine Technorati now tracks almost 20 million of them, and various estimates of the number of blog users range from 32 million to 50 million Americans.
Blogophiles see blogs as a new way for citizens to express themselves and, especially among the political bloggers, a new way for citizens to talk back to the "MSM" -- the mainstream media. According to Mike Godwin, legal director of a First Amendment advocacy group called Public Knowledge, "A.J. Liebling famously commented that freedom of the press belongs to those who own one. Well, we all own one now."
But in all the excitement and hype, it's easy to overlook the fact that in some ways political blogs are not so different from or even separate from the MSM they often love to hate.
One similarity is found in emerging patterns of Web traffic. Blog abundance creates a paradox: Given more information choices than ever, most people economize, trying to find efficient ways to tame the information tide. So most regular users rely on a few blogs for most of their information. That's one reason why a handful of political blogs gets the lion's share of traffic. A recent study of 2 million Internet users found that the top four blog "hosts," such as blogspot.com, are visited by more than 5 million visitors per quarter. Unique visitors to the Drudge Report and the conservative blog freerepublic.com number2 million to 3 million per quarter, twice as many as their nearest competitors and dwarfing countless smaller blogs.
(Excerpt) Read more at oregonlive.com ...
Not a peep on FR about the Valerie Plame affair? I'm so ashamed.
Top blogs like FR are not fair and balanced.
Guess we ought to give up the "power to set the agenda and frame the story" to others.
What do you think?
I'm going to go to Washington and chain myself to the WH fence until folks quit referring to FR as a blog. :)
" Not a peep on FR about the Valerie Plame affair? I'm so ashamed."
Gosh Jim... I guess you've been deleting those hundreds of threads about Plame/Miller/Rove/Libby/Wilson shortly after I read them so other people couldn't find them... Shame on you. :)
Peep.
I think the federal gov't needs to regulate the alphabet in order to balance the playing field for illiterates.
You already know what I think about that:) I do wish they could settle on what FR is.
Another moonbat sniffing the brake fluid.
Hmmmm. Guess the author has gone deaf and dumb in both eyes.
Brake fluid? Does that work?
"You already know what I think about that:) I do wish they could settle on what FR is."
I'm more concerned about comments coming out of congress about how blogs are not journalism and not entitled to freedom of press protection - that makes the effort to classify sites like FreeRepublic as blogs potentially an actual threat, not just an anomaly.
Yeah Jim, it's just a cryin' shame that the leftist don't control all media decisions... sniff, sniff.
With ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and a major portion of the print media controlled by the leftists, it's really a major concern of mine that the right has developed an internet community where citizens can voice conservative views.
Talk radio and the internet are all that keeps conservatism alive these days. That really bothers some folks.
I'll be the Oragonian is perplexed to know that their readers can find out how biased their reporting is.
Another example of shoddy reporting. For months, my tagline stated: "The only NOC list containing Valerie Plame's name was stolen by Ethan Hunt."
Accordingly, I say again, "Peep".
I think I know a secret. ;)
FR is NOT a blog...more of a meeting of the minds...
What, are we supposed to visit the site-that-should-not-be-named to become more rounded? Ugh, shivers.
You know that the effort to control US will be intense. We will have free speech in this country or we won't. I'm betting that we will, because I know we will fight to the death to keep it.
I've heard from the MSM that there is a blogsite called "Buckhead.com".
FR is necessary if for no other reason than to document and correct the many mistakes and inaccuracies made elsewhere.
But really, I think - for better or for worse - there is a symbiotic relationship between the MSM and "blogs". The starting point for discussion here almost always starts with a posted article from the MSM.
I think their server choked when they did a keyword search on "Plame" at FR. Since they could not cross-index all of the data, there was not a peep. Right? I mean, if they honestly made a mistake and searched under "Vallery Plaim", there is not a peep!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.