No substitute for journalism

As Dawn Patrol pointed out the Baltimore Sun carries an anti-blogging op-ed by Christopher Hanson, a journalism professor at the University of Maryland entitled No substitute for journalism (As Dawn indicates, if you want to read the article but don't want to go through the Sun's registration process, use the e-mail address "bugmenot90@mailinator.com" and the password "bugmenot" (both sans quotation marks). E-mail address and password come via BugMeNot.com.)

Professor Hanson said: [B]loggers hastened Dan Rather's retirement as CBS news anchor by questioning the authenticity of documents he had relied on in a report critical of President Bush. Blogger agitation also led CNN News Chief Eason Jordan to resign last month for supposedly stating without evidence that U.S. troops had, in effect, executed journalists in Iraq. There is no denying that the bloggers are a powerful force in the information world. But at least for now, they are no substitute for mainstream journalism, despite its flaws. A great many bloggers are either too self-absorbed to focus on keeping the public informed or too skewed by ideology to put factual accuracy front and center.

And yet they exposed Dan Rather and Eason Jordon, something the Main Stream Media (MSM) did not do.

And in any event, I don't know of any bloggers that consider themselves as a substitute for mainstream journalism. I certainly don't consider myself as a substitute, but I do consider myself, and even more so the many good bloggers whose work I read and comment on, as useful supplements to mainstream journalism. And since most of the Mainstream Media (MSM) are very far to the left, a good conservative blogger can give a different perspective on things.

Many of the best journalists have impact because they expose serious abuses of power, as in Watergate, by painstakingly verifying their facts. But, perversely enough, bloggers' impact often derives from reckless impatience - a rush to shoot first and verify later, usually driven by ideological zeal.

And as just indicated in the case of Dan Rather and Eason Jordon, they accomplish the same result.

Take Clinton-hater Drudge,

Professor, I believe that is what in Journalism class is called an Ad Hominem Attack. Is this a technique taught at the the University of Maryland?

whose online "scoop" about the president's affair with Monica Lewinsky was essentially a rumor. Because the story later turned out to be true, Mr. Drudge suddenly was elevated to media icon, kitchen table giant killer, radio and TV star. No matter that he had also reported a series of false rumors. One can't expect a cyber-cowboy to match the standards that apply to a Dan Rather!

Would that be the same Dan Rather whose producer was fired, and where three other high executives were "asked to resign", and who himself was forced to retire early because of pushing a story using fake documents attempting to control a Presidential election?

Consider the Eason Jordan affair. Even today it is unclear precisely what the CNN exec said, or intended to say, during a January panel discussion in Switzerland. Mr. Jordan insisted afterward that he had meant U.S. soldiers had recklessly targeted individuals, not knowing they were journalists. But a sketchy Web posting by a conference participant said Mr. Jordan had accused soldiers of deliberate journocide. No transcript was available.

Even so, a brigade of conservative bloggers, incensed by CNN's "liberal bias," bellowed for Mr. Jordan's blood and got it, vigilante style, with the facts still murky - an approach that would have resulted in failing grades in any journalism school. Lynch Bloggers want to have big-league journalistic impact but to avoid ethical standards they apply so vigorously to mainstream reporters.

As I recall there was a tape of the session, and the main thing the bloggers were pushing for was for the tape to be played. Would mainstream reporters, replete with all of their ethical standards, not want to hear the actual tape if someone said someone else said something?

The Blogosphere does wonders as a forum for debate, political and social "networking" and wild creative expression. But it is not realizing its potential to backstop mainstream news coverage with solid, factual grass-roots journalism - the kind most acutely required where cash-strapped, short-staffed newspapers fail to scrutinize government and business while ratings-crazed TV stations chase carnage.

If newspapers are cash-strapped and short-staffed, where do you expect bloggers, who are usually individuals, to come up with expense money to back up those newspapers? And how are they to get Press Passes? Jeff Gannon got a DayPass at the White House, but could not get a regular pass, and he was not a blogger, but rather a paid reporter for Talon News. The first blogger to get one was a left wing gossip blogger, and he had the support of some of the left wing main stream media outlets.

As Dennis, a 2nd-year seminarian for the Diocese of Memphis, said in a comment on Dawn Patrol: Deriding bloggers because they are not good journalists is like deriding novelists for not being better poets, or complaining that the local Baptist preacher doesn't include a formal epiclesis in his worship service. It's different medium. Hanson seems to misunderstand what's going on. Sure, some bloggers have a pretense of journalism. Other bloggers keep a diary or journal. Others do some of both, and from day to day you don't know what you'll get at a given blog. All of life does not consist of just one kind of conversation.

And as Andrea Harris commented: "Calling blogging 'no substitute for mainstream journalism, despite its flaws...'"

Nice misdirection, there, Mr. Hanson. The only people bleating about blogs attempting to "substitute" for mainstream journalism are the mainstream journalists who have been coasting on the automatic regard their positions get, and are now feeling threatened because they can no longer avoid the fact that there are "amateurs" out there who not only write better than they do, but don't care what "the mainstream" thinks about it. I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the article.