Posted on 09/27/2004 9:29:55 PM PDT by Jonah Lomu
Winders: Cry havoc! And let slip the blogs of war
So, you ever get that feeling in the back of your brain you're about to become way too familiar with a buzz word you happily could have lived without? You know, it's that inkling the world is going to force you to get a bit hipper, make you a tad more in tune, feed you just one more catch phrase.
It's a feeling not unlike being trapped on one of those VH1 nostalgia shows.
Such was the case for myself last week.
I mean I was perfectly satisfied with my life before reading my first blog; had plenty of pals before meeting my first blogger; full of enough adventure before setting my first foot into the blogosphere.
But there I was knee-deep in blog buzz trying to play catch-up last week.
Now I don't mean to spin wax in an iPod world here, but I guess if there's one lesson Danny Rather and CBS taught us last week it's that the Internet plays host to more than porn. Seems it also contains a good number of bored political zealots as well.
OK, so they're not all zealots.
Now understand that a blog - a shorter, cooler way of saying Web log - is an on-line pursuit equal in status to writing in your diary then shouting its contents out from the middle of a busy intersection. Readers of such tomes enjoy the voyeuristic pursuit allowing them to take a break from the dull nature of their lives and pull a peeping Tom into the dull nature of other people's lives.
Basically, most bloggers just need a little attention for one reason or another - maybe they haven't picked up "The Sims 2" yet; perhaps face-to-face contact with a real, live person poses way too many challenges; or maybe it just gets too lonely in their parent's basement.
But know blogging is gaining buzz.
While still in its infancy, most citizens of the blogosphere - that's right, they named their own little world as well - have nothing to say beyond day-to-day ramblings on the level of a grocery list. But there are some among them, nattering and chattering back and forth, who consider themselves a sort of citizen journalist.
And these folks love nothing more than poking Big Media with a sharp stick.
Now know this whole "60 Minutes" credibility issue first was raised by a blogger screen-named Buckhead, who later was outed as Harry MacDougald, a University of Georgia School of Law grad and Atlanta lawyer.
Our boy packs some serious right-wing credentials including membership in the conservative Federalist Society and Southeastern Legal Foundation, a hand in drafting a petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton and some tag-team work with Kenneth Starr.
Wow. This guy actually worked with Kenny Starr.
So you know this guy is all about facts.
Anyway, even though his original assertion was incorrect (that 1970s-era typewriters couldn't form the superscript that appears on the documents), MacDougald will not be known for being wrong. He will be known for bringing blogging into the mainstream.
Folks, nothing is mainstream until you hear your grandparents comment on it.
Honestly, until last week, I thought blogging was how folks either kill time at work or keep others up to date on fresh Kirk vs. Picard arguments. Not only was I pretty close with that assumption, but I also was not alone in my opinion.
I mean you just gotta love Jonathan Klein.
Facing mounting questions regarding "Rathergate," this former CBS executive lashed out at those he blamed for his network's crumbling. "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances (at '60 Minutes') and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing," Klein said.
Bloggers raised their backs at that implication, saying many of their ranks are lawyers, professors and frustrated journalists hoping to poke at the system from the unemployment line. And to a point, that's true.
By keeping stories in play for longer than normal news cycles, bloggers have scored past victories in toppling Sen. Trent Lott and, in part, Howell Raines at the New York Times. Now they've bagged themselves a prized Big Media rhino in Dan Rather.
But let's be honest here, it takes more than a laptop and an Internet connection to become Bob Woodward. They have no checks. No balances. No names. And no legal framework to face.
Wait until the law catches up and a blogger faces his first libel lawsuit.
In fact, bloggers fill the armchair quarterbacks slot of the Big Media game. Sure they can pick apart every nano-decision down to Aaron Brown's tie-shirt combo selection, but they have no capability of gathering the news.
They're the spitball shooters in the back of the class. Sort of like newspaper columnists, only with cooler, CB handle-like names.
But cheers to the bloggers among us on their week in the sun. Their day may one day come, but it's not here just yet.
So until it arrives, sit back and enjoy being able to work in your pajamas.
* Jason Winders is executive editor of the Athens Banner-Herald. He can be contacted at jason.winders@onlineathens.com
Where's this jerk been? Matt Drudge faced that 6 or 7 years ago.
A few things are generally left out of the discussion. What is in is calling bloggers right wing nuts, mavericks, amateurs, and opinionated people without facts. Minus the right wing comment, that sounds more like the journalists.
Journalism is not exactly a brainy major. The bloggers sound weird from their handles, but just beneath the surface and you find competent attorneys, scientists, computer professionals, many of considerable repute who just happen to be anonymous. My point, the journalists are no match intellectually to many of the bloggers who are the equivalent of the experts in the background quoted by journalists.
The MSM can continue a little longer in their hubris since whoever is still listening to them is unaware of the blogsphere or news streaming sites such as this and Lucianne. They'll get over it. Well, at least soon they'll really be gone whether they get over it or not.
Good thing this guy is a professional backed by vast network of checks and balances. Otherwise, someone might have accidentally spelled this sentence "But now blogging is gaining buzz."
At least he didn't mention Buckbeak.
My tears fall like rain....
ping
No, Jason, "Neocon" is a "buzzword" we're sick of hearing. "Progressive" is a "buzzword" we're sick of hearing. Now, "Luddite" is an old word that applies to you:
1) Any of a group of British workers who between 1811 and 1816 rioted and destroyed laborsaving textile machinery in the belief that such machinery would diminish employment.
2) One who opposes technical or technological change.
See, Jason? It's that simple. An "old" world that you, as someone who has a university degree and everything, can go look up in that big heavy "book" on the "shelf." (You're not one of those people who makes "quotation marks" in the air with two fingers of each hand, are you? Thought so.)
I'd email you the "link" to this "thread" to show you just how much that "Buckwheat" fellow didn't "post" on a "blog," but I'm afraid your "computer assistant" wouldn't convey the information to you....
bttt
A real word smith, ain't he?
Journalistic equivalent of halitosis.
Many Freepers got slandered in the media, this is nothing new! :)
I swear, with a very few exceptions (and there are exceptions, you know who you are :D ) journalism majors are just about the most abysmally stupid people on the face of the planet.
Bar none.
Thank Heaven we have a way to learn about the world without it first being filtered through their notion about what we "sheep" ought to believe.
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