National Review‘s Jim Geraghty evaluates where the blogosphere has succeeded and failed in a piece on CBS‘s always thought-provoking Public Eye blog. Some key highlights:
Back in the really fun days of blogging, summer 2004, a bunch of folks typing on the Internet had a bone to pick with a particular network news division over a quartet of memos that had inspired a wee bit of controversy. At that time I wrote, “Sure, the Sauronic Big Eye of CBS is on the verge of being toppled by the Pajamahadeen…” …
….It’s about a year and a half later, and we’ve seen two differing trends in the antagonists in that fight. One is that CBS News has gotten a bit better and more responsible; and the other is that a significant portion of the blogosphere has, I humbly suggest, gone sour.
He points to some developments at CBS and says it’s progress. And then:
And looking at the other side of the past Sauronic Eye vs. Pajamahadeen conflict, we notice that, perhaps more significantly, the blogs are not what they once were.
In the memo case, bloggers set about their task like amateur detectives, tracking down veterans of the Texas Air National Guard who were familiar with office protocol for memos and experts on 1970s typewriter technology, and looking into previous statements of the experts CBS had consulted, etc. Sure, many bloggers were angry – believing that Dan Rather and his crew had used phony documents to take a shot at President Bush at the height of a closely-fought presidential campaign – but the anger had to take a back seat to establishing the “case” – why the documents didn’t appear genuine.
Today, there are still some blogs out there going out and doing reporting, or drawing on well-grounded experience in non-journalism fields or providing insightful analysis. But many, many more blogs are forsaking fact-gathering for the venting of straight-up, raw anger.
He nails it.
Weblogs have always had “trolls” who hurl insulting adjectives around as they lurk beneath the posts in blog comments sections. They rant and make wild charges. But the only point a blog “troll” often makes is that he/she/it is starved for attention and somehow thinks being insulting or going on the offensive equals being intelligent, thoughtful or delivering some revelation (except for that writer’s own IQ).
Now, more than ever, “trolls” are the ones who seemingly write blog posts on some blogs.
They’ve moved up in the world from the comments in the basement to the posts on the first floor.
It gets readership (with some readers) and is much easier to do than analyses or Google searches to confirm whether an assertion stated as fact is more a feeling someone may have in their gut (or in their fanny, where some of the thought processes for these vitriolic posts apparently originate).
Newspapers, magazines and broadcast newspeople will interview many sources before they’ll do a profile on someone that states a characterization as fact. Some bloggers will use their gut or some fig-leaf facts to generalize a preconceived political belief. And the attacks you see usually have an ideological motive as was the case in the bitter attacks against Carroll.
Geraghty goes on to argue that the ugliness isn’t only on the right but on the left, too. (The attacks in the Carroll fiasco, though, came from the some on right but hurt the credibility of all blogging in general). Then he declares:
At their best, blogs can provide the mainstream media with competition, and pressure established organizations bring their A-game and put out their best work. But the MSM will have little reason to fear competition from blogs, if enough of them embrace the growing trend of denounce-with-spittle-flicking-fury-first-and-get-the-answers-later. Some readers new to the blogosphere will make distinctions between blogs; others will look at the high-profile worst of the lot and say, “to hell with them.”
The Pajamahadeen have gone from fact-checking Dan Rather to speculating that Jill Carroll faked her tears on her hostage tape. This is not progress.
It is progress, though — if the idea is to give greater prominence to “trolls.”
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.