"Ironically, bloggers mostly feed off the work of professional journalists who do the legwork."
No....we feed off the lies, mistakes, and bias of "professional" journalists.
What a bunch of nonsense. If I want news on Iraq, I look at some blogs of people that are "doing the legwork" in Iraq by fighting, rebuilding, and living there that so happen to write an e-diary of what is going from there perspective.
In depth, varied and rich information content.
Hehe, you gotta love the last line of the article. In the eyes of this guy (and the MSM) the bloggers and others who depend on the Internet for their news are no different from the trigger happy third-worlders who blindly fire their weapons into the air, and are puzzled by the lethal lead falling from the sky.
Just another reason why the MSM needs a slap in the face. They are completely missing the change in the status quo.
For those who wish to opine!
Ms. Zerbisias,
In your interesting article about the Pajamhedin, I believe you display an error in thought which renders the entire article nugatory.
The error, if I am right, is that you understand us (I count myself among the pajamahedin, though I should more precisely be called bathrobehedin -- I don't wear pajamas) to be attacking the sources of our information. But the problem as I see it is that in the MSM (Mainstream Media) too many reporters not only bring information to public attention but also (As Mr. Jennings in a recent advertisement claimed to do) they try to tell us what it means.
AS you and I both know, editing begins when one decides THIS story, rather than THAT one, is worthy of reporting. That editing is unavoidable. But while the MSM pretend to report, they actually end up seeking to indoctrinate.
When the MSM goes back to reporting, the pajamahedin will happily return to our enjoyably bilious commentary. But when they insult our intelligence and mislead our country's electorate by slanting their reporting, we will do what we morally and legally can to give them as much trouble as they can stomach -- and more.
In related news .... ;) I think you may not understand or appreciate the pleasure we take when our typos and misspellings are pointed out. To us this indicates that we amateurs who do not have the support of proof-readers, fact-checkers, and style books do a better job of getting the news out than you professionals.
For example, you write
Which brings us to those pajamahadeen, the online brigades who claim credit for bringing those documents into question and forcing Rather to apologize for his reporting. [emphasis added]Not only do some of us (not me) CLAIM credit for bringing the Rather-gate forgeries into question, we DESERVE credit. It was unpaid amateurs or volunteers who in a few minutes did what Gungha Dan neglected or refused to do, namely look critically at the documents he adduced as evidence.
By your use of "claim credit" you suggest that the claim is, at least, questionable. No one who knows what happened could suggest that. So we are left with an uncomfortable question: Are you dishonest, merely ignorant, or some third thing?
What ever the answer to that question is, in your attempt to mock and to disparage us, you show why we are necessary and why we will not go away. Somebody has got to care about the truth. If the professionals won't, then we amateurs will set up a howling that will continue to be heard even as far away as the editorial offices of the Toronto Star. We will not only howl. We will hunt, we will pursue, and we will catch your brethren (and sistren) in their dishonesty and we will take their jobs.
One down, uncounted thousands to go.
By checks and balances, Klein meant the rigours of professional journalism and not the opinionating of the blogosphere.
Ironically, bloggers mostly feed off the work of professional journalists who do the legwork.
Wow, is this guy an idiot. Let's see what he has said in this article. First, the bloggers uncovered that the documents were fake. Then he says we lack checks and balances. People in denial are often also delusional, as it this writer.
No....we feed off the lies, mistakes, and bias of "professional" journalists.
Some of us pajamahadeens have journalism degrees so we can do our own legwork. ;) And even if we don't have the degrees....we can spot stupidity and bias 1,000 miles away.....
Ha. If they only knew. Some of us are award-winning journalists who got drummed out because we wanted to report the truth and they didn't want to print it.
I know this has been much mocked, but there is a certain amount of truth here, if people would get over their anti-MSM attitude long enough to admit it.
Understand that most broadcast news (except live footage of hurricanes, etc.) is ripped-off from newspapers and magazines. Ask your local newspaper reporter how often her stories are picked up (without any credit or acknowledgement) by the radio and TV stations.
Look at all the posts on Free Republic that are links to articles from other sources -- AP, Fox, Washington Times, columnists. Where bloggers make a difference usually is in taking facts reported by some media source, doing a little Googling to dig up a fact left out, or maybe adding some "local knowledge," and then "connecting the dots" to make a point that was missing from the original news article.
There's nothing wrong with that. "Real journalists" do the same thing: get a press release, make a couple of phone calls, do a Nexis search, bing-bang-boom, you got a news story. It's not completely original, but that doesn't make it illegitimate.
So it in no way detracts from what bloggers do to say that much of their work is based on reports by MSM. The guys in MSM cannibalize each other's work all the time.