Before I begin, I should point out that if you’re a member of the righteous blog police, then it’s probably not for you, instead (folowing official blog usage guidelines) click on this outgoing link.
Ryan McGrath sent me on a link to Kathleen Parker’s syndicated column (in this instance published in the Chicago Tribune). Kathleen’s story which has already probably stirred up a nice nest of moral outrage among the blogistas is, to me anyway, based on common sense.
“Although I’ve been a blog fan since the beginning, and have written favorably about the value added to journalism and public knowledge thanks to the new “citizen journalist,” I’m also wary of power untempered by restraint and accountability.
Say what you will about the so-called mainstream media, but no industry agonizes more about how to improve its product, police its own members and better serve its communities. Newspapers are filled with carpal-tunneled wretches, overworked and underpaid, who suffer near-pathological allegiance to getting it right…. Bloggers persist no matter their contributions or quality, though most would have little to occupy their time were the mainstream media to disappear tomorrow. Some bloggers do their own reporting, but most rely on mainstream reporters to do the heavy lifting. Some bloggers also offer superb commentary, but most babble, buzz and blurt like caffeinated adolescents competing for the Ritalin generation’s inevitable senior superlative: Most Obsessive-Compulsive.”
You can see why some of the high church will be spraining their fingers as they bash vitriol at what they call the MSM or Mainstream Media – I really don’t like that term.
But I think she has a great point, while there are undoubtedly thousands (or more) of great bloggers out there, there’s also a lot of dross, a lot of people grinding axes and a lot of verbal diarrhea. I fell sorry for her with all the barbs that will be sent her way for giving an opinion, but it’s no harm to pull away from the Koolaid on a regular basis.
Murphy's Law 