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 ...
We all know rule number one: crush all challenges to the state. That's why Big Brother is so deathly afraid of one guy who learns to fall in love.
...you know, a cabal. ;)
Not enough choices, too many choices...WHEN IS IT EVER GOING TO BE FAIR?
Does anyone note the irony that the Oregonian is threatened by alternative news outlets, so comes out with an article describing what is wrong with them, and leads the reader to believe there was no discussion of the Flame affair on a site like FR.
And calling it a blog - attempting to position their adversaries?
Even in their own discussion of the topic of their choice the MSM has factual innaccuracies and spin (misdefining their competitors).
It appraently never occurs to them that if they told the news straight people wouldn't feel driven to alternative sources. Instead, they find fault with the alternative sources.
I think the writer missed the key differences.
1. That being now if we see something we don't like or believe we have the choice to go somewhere else.
Before we didn't.
2. Used to be they spoke for us whether we agreed with them or not.
Now we have places to speak for ourselves.
3. We used to have to listen to them.
Now they have to listen to us.
4. Used to they could make up lies and call it news.
Now we can read their news and when it's not true call it lies.
All because of a few Americans like you.
Thank you Mr. Robinson.
God Bless You and Yours. MRN
Guess we ought to give up the "power to set the agenda and frame the story" to others.
What do you think?
FR is fair precisely because its stated outlook is conservative. There is no hiding it: it is right up front in the "Statement by the founder of Free Republic"
The converse is a manifest absurdity. How can one define "fair and balanced" or "unbiased". All sources must be biased, for the simple reason that no one can define unbiased operationally. (The best attempt would be to poll everyone in the US and ask what news services / blogs are liberal vs. conservative. The one that had an equal number of votes both ways might be nominally unbiased).
The difference is that FR is up front and honest about it.
Yes.
Is it not possible that Bush saw that it didn't matter either way? That perhaps the shovel that the left thought they'd use to bury us could also be used to bludgeon them into a hole?
That's certainly the way I saw it.
No we are informed and educated. Screw fair and balanced.
Look for Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to introduce bills into their houses that require FR and Drudge to give "equal time" and "noticeable links" to all blogs and news discussion sites that give "alternative" points of view.
Searching on just the word Plame in the title I very quickly came up with 250 postings and there were more so, I guess the Oregonian is LYING or lazy I vote for both.
LOL! Well, okay then...
LOL, the MSM is really worried as they should be. Power is tough to loose and they have proved beyond a doubt that they don't deserve it. Liars eventually fall victim to the Power of the Truth.
Power of the Truth, Power to FR.
Good on you Jim.
Unique?
Only in your little world Ms. Lawrence!
. . . insinuating that someone else - namely The Oregonian - is "fair and balanced."Now, clearly, being fair and balanced is a virtue. This raises ever-so-slight difficulty that it is arrogant to claim a virtue. Especially when such claim is used, as here, as trumps in a debate.
I cry "Foul!"
It's called "Debunking the MSM"
The fallacy in that "logic" - central to the conceit that McCain-Feingold is constitutional - is the claim that "the press" is coextensive with "journalism."That is patently absurd. Are we to believe that "the freedom of . . . the press" does not also refer to books, for example? Books aren't journalism either. Indeed the actual expression in the Constitution is "the freedom of speech, or of the press" - are we now to be spied upon by censors who arrest us like some Saudi Islamic police if we dare to tell our neighbors that in our opinion incumbent politicians should not be reelected?
Is speech and printing - and, lying somewhere in between, the Internet - discussion of politics to be censored, while intentionally offensive "art" is constitutionally protected "speech?"
Why Broadcast Journalism isUnnecessary and Illegitimate
.
"while over on the conservative side of the blog aisle, barely a peep could be heard about that story."
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