Anyone's A Critic

Howard Kurtz editorializes in the WaPo The rise of the blogosphere remains one of the most exciting communications developments in decades, giving ordinary folks the chance to bite back at a media establishment widely viewed as arrogant. It's little surprise that mainstream media types don't like being questioned, challenged and chided by critics typing from their basements and bedrooms.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen

But the increasingly caustic nature of some online criticism is prompting many journalists to complain that their honesty and motivation are being trashed along with their work. "You want to pay attention to what legitimate critics are saying out there," Nagourney says. "In journalism, you screw up from time to time. But it's become so toxic -- attacks for the sake of attacks"....

They wish for the old days, when people would just scream at the TVs, but where no one knew it that was not in the room

Bloggers have scored three major media knockouts since last fall. They were the first to blow the whistle on the suspect National Guard documents used by CBS's Dan Rather in a report on President Bush. They helped force the resignation of CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan over off-the-record remarks about the U.S. military. And they prompted the resignation of online conservative reporter Jeff Gannon by exposing his real name and X-rated past. Douglass praises some bloggers for "looking at issues and news coverage in a fresh way." But she says others are "driven by anger" and trying "to snuff out the opinions offered by the other side," undermining journalists who "are trying to provide a more balanced view." "No one likes to have their integrity attacked or their motives or honesty questioned," Douglass says. "If you're a high-profile reporter, there is somebody out there writing some rage-filled tirade about your reporting. . . . Will they intimidate us? Will they make us back off? Probably not."

Then why worry about it

Some journalists are unperturbed. CNN analyst Jeff Greenfield likes many blogs and doesn't much worry about "the baked-potato brains who say you're a media whore. . . . On the whole, I'm real happy to know there are a lot of people watching with the capacity to check me. I don't think that's chilling. It's just another incentive to get your facts right."

Michelle Malkin blogged You may be getting sick of the Schiavo memo, but Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz is still spinning the story. In today's column, Kurtz cites the memo controversy after pointing out that a growing number of bloggers are engaging in unfair "personal attacks" on MSM reporters and commentators. Kurtz, Shafer, and Neal now focus exclusively on the authenticity of the memo rather than broader questions raised by bloggers about the accuracy of Allen's reporting. By contrast, the Post's ombudsman has admitted that the Post has not yet substantiated Allen's still-unretracted allegation that the memo was "distributed to Republican senators by party leaders."

Lance blogged Yes every article and every editorial is read and then blogged about. This new set of checks and balances in journalism has been spoken of by much more articulate people than I, but it is clear that the blogs are forcing a a level of accountability that has never been seen by mainstream journalism and that may be what scares them. Get you facts straight and watch the slant on the non editorial pages and everything moves along accordingly. Change the facts or build bias into what should be straight reporting and expect some burnback. In the end competition builds a better product and at the very least keeps some news organizations from being able to subtly alter the news to fit their idiological slant. We are just watching and reading. A few extra readers shouldnt be to disconcerting should it?

Marcus Aurelius blogged Now there may be a conservative blogger somewhere (of this I have no doubt) who still has not admitted the memo to be written by a staff-member of a Republican senator but most have. Prior to the confession by Mel Martinez's aide there was plenty of reason to suspect the credibility of the memo. When that confession came the bloggers I read (and I too) admitted the memo to be what it was.

Howard Kurtz has yet to realize the memo was not what they supposed it to be: A memo written by Republican Leadership and distributed to all Republican Senators. That is the story, when the WaPo retracts those statements (which they did make and then later on surreptitiously removed from the story, much like Al-Pazeera's changing the boo-story) then the story goes away.