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 ...
Tell ya what I think... I think the MSM newspapers ain't worth the trees dying for them anymore...
I dunno, I get too much enjoyment looking at Dan Rather's head above the fireplace to make such weighty decisions.
I love LOL at some of the articles and the posters!
"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? "
I'm with you completely on the journalism issue - freedom of the press clearly covers the new forms of press - why would anybody in government argue otherwise - I can't imagine how they could and be honest - they must be afraid of new media.
McCain-Feingold, however, is only unconstitutional if you think that spending is a form of speech since it only limits spending. I'm not convinced on that point.
as last week's mishmash of news about Harriet Miers, Iraq's vote on its constitution, Hurricane Wilma's gathering force, and the arrest and booking of Sen. Tom DeLay ...
Thanks for the ping; Welcome Aboard!
Marking...
That was my thought. If she/he read FR they would know we discuss the news, not make the news, and when we can we correct the multitude of inaccuracies in the news.
Looks like your invention is working as designed, sir. Thank you!
Liberals get zotted here when they post articles. DU does the same to Conservatives.
About as biased and "unbalanced" as one can get.
And this:
And this:
Free Republic is a conversation.
You run one of the nation's premier websites.
IT -
PING!
Regards,
TS
Well, I'll cede the point - if you can show me any press that runs for free. Newspapers have to buy paper and ink, and buy and maintain the presses, and operate the presses, and distribute the papers. That all costs money.You will say, "but that money comes from the sale of the paper." And I will reply, "not really - the newspaper lives and dies by advertising revenue - and not only so, but a newspaper may be started up by an entrepreneur who got his money making sausage or something."
But all that aside, the money paid by the newspaper customer is different from the money I donate to the Republican Party exactly how? To prove that it is in any sense different, you must first prove that the newspaper is not a political party, nor in league with one. And that, my friend, you will find surprisingly difficult to prove. Because the truth is that journalism which calls itself "objective" systematically is aligned with the Democratic Party.
Or, to make my case clearer, the Democratic Party does not have any principles which require it to contest the idealogical field with "objective journalism." So far as print journalism is concerned, that is a scandal only in the sense that it is amazing that we have so many suckers in the country who are completely oblivious to that possibility. In the case of government-licensed broadcast journalism, OTOH, the fact that government licensees whom the government proclaims to be "broadcasting in the public interest" claim to be objective but actually broadcast de facto Democratic propaganda is a hair-on-fire scandal.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate
Isn't that why they have cartoons on the Oregonian editorial pages?
Hey, we ARE environmentally sensitive!
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