Posted on 02/22/2005 7:50:15 AM PST by crushkerry
Somewhere between Rathergate and Easongate a germ of an idea caught hold that the blogosphere is hell-bent on destroying and “bringing down” the Old Media. Certainly that is how the Old Media sees the struggle. Maybe, too, there are those here in the New Media who see it that way. We don’t. And we don’t want to be part of any “cyber lynch mob” to eliminate the Old Media altogether.
Of course, it is my considered opinion no such controversy exists. Look at the top right-of-center bloggers: Instapundit, Hugh Hewitt, Power Line (and many more.) I don’t believe they see their role as “bringing down the media” but rather to inject truth in reporting. Indeed, to insist upon it. If the consequence is that the Old Media loses readers and viewers, so be it. But that is not the goal.
As for us, we don’t want to “bring down” the media so much as keep them honest. For that matter, we tend to have more fun with liberal politicos and moonbat bloggers than the Old Media, anyway (Note: my Microsoft Word recognizes neither “moonbat” nor “blooger,” something that will have to change.)
All of which brings me to Howard Kurtz's column this morning about the war between bloggers and the Old Media. Kurtz writes:
So do the much-maligned media do anything right?Maybe a few things. It's mighty expensive to cover wars and maintain bureaus around the world. Some news organizations do that.
The meat-and-potatoes of community news -- city council meetings, zoning changes, school boards -- are still blanketed by local papers.
Old-fashioned, shoe-leather investigative reporting -- from Bernard Kerik's business problems to the Abu Ghraib abuses -- is regularly executed by staffers at large organizations who specialize in developing sources and sifting through documents. (It was newspapers that revealed Blair and Kelley's lies and Williams's $240,000 Education Department contract.)
And television remains unsurpassed at covering breaking news (wars and tsunamis) and bringing the nation together at times of tragedy and sadness (9/11, space shuttle explosions, Ronald Reagan's death).
Kurtz is absolutely right. While we believe the old Media is inexorably leftist, their positives far outweigh the negatives. (Though no one has been able to articulate to me why Bernard Kerik is not qualified to run Homeland Security but Bill Clinton was qualified to run the free world, despite the similarities of their sins.)
The problem arises when the Old Media, caught in a lie, a skew or even a bout of ineptitude, responds with utter derision against bloggers. We are “guys in pajamas,” “ankle biters,” “morons,” “lynch mobs” in their eyes. Why in heaven’s name can’t they just apologize when they do something stupid? We have. And we have discovered that Americans are extremely forgiving. What a different world we would live in if Dan Rather stood in front of the CBS camera and said, “I’m sorry. I did something very stupid because I really, really want George W. Bush to lose and I lost sight of my role as a journalist.” But then, if Dan Rather and his Old Media buds had it in them to apologize, they probably would never make such gratuitous “mistakes” anyway.
Here’s a modest proposal. Old Media outlets should assemble in-house teams of “Bias Checkers.” Not fact checkers, though more of those in every news room would have its benefits. But I’m talking about ordinary citizens who are part of a twenty-four hour bias checking team available to editors and producers. That way when 60 Minutes is about to run a segment a week before the election, which has obvious implications in the election itself, they can run the segment by a focus group style collection of regular folks who will have the guts to say to Mapes, Rather, et al., “You know, this is tripe. It’s obviously an uncritical regurgitation of partisan potshots against the president.” Or the next time the AP writes a story about how moderate Howard Dean is, their team of Bias Checkers can tell them, “there is no definition of ‘moderate’ that can accommodate the likes of Howard Dean. Aren’t you just trying to mainstream this nut?” And on and on.
It would help to solve one problem we know exists in many a newsroom. A reporter will get far down a story. The story will have a theme ... a message ... a conclusion like, say, the President of The United States was AWOL during Vietnam. But then, late in the reporters research they discover 1.) its not really true, or 2.) they didn't dig up the dirt they thought they would dig up. But it's too late. We're up against deadline. File the story anyway. Not so fast. Under my scheme, ordinary Americans would have to see it first. And they would undoubtedly say, "you didn't do your homework, did you?"
We have no interest in seeing CBS go out of business. Not the New York Times, CNN or anyone else. That’s not what this whole thing is about. But until the Old Media recognizes that they will just continue to call us names and continue in their willful blindness.
Ping.
That's the smell of fear. No one's ever held them accountable before.
Congressman Billybob
I quit reading the local big city papers when I discovered I could predict the type of stories as well as the point of view these stories would take on an almost daily basis.
It was that old joke, "End of the World", "Woman, minority and poor hurt worse". Everything was slanted as to how a "story" would affect "woman", "minorities", "the poor", and in the bay area, "gays".
It got just too predictable. Every so often I will pick up a daily paper to see if it has changed, it hasn't, although the last paper I bought had a price of 46 cents on it, but required me to put in two quarters to get. They can not even be honest with the price.
That is my goal and I will not deny it. Old media pretends to be an objective carrier of the news. They have used this to manipulate public opinion to sway towards their own Liberal bias. As long as they choose to serve as propaganda mouth pieces for the DNC under the banner of "objectivity" abusing public trust, I will seek their further erosion. If they choose to relinquish the mantle of objectivity, I will change my stance to that of a competitor. Ball's in their court.
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