Just Kidding--Well, The "Experts" Aren't
I had an interesting conversation with fellow soldier and blogger Scott D, (I owed him that since he encouraged me to write a post about this--shamless friendly plug--you're welcome Scott!) about an editorial and related report that hit the news this weekend. Its a stunning example of the denial and arrogance of the traditional media.
The editorial is titled State of the Media at a critical time, and is more noteworthy for its exclusions that the actual text. Nowhere in the editorial will you find a reference to the glaring mistakes, both intentional and systemic, of the big media outlets that have been exposed by the blogosphere, and the blogoshere alone. Without blogs of all kinds and political ideologies, at least two outright conspiracies (CBS and Dan Rather, and the Jeff Gannon incidents) would have gone unnoticed by all.
And yet, in their infinite arrogance, whenever you see forums or articles of discussion of this subject, its centered around the alleged irresponsibility of bloggers, not the open misleading, and sometimes criminal actions of the traditional media. The media personalities that appear in these discussions revel in their "duty" of giving the facts to the people to keep the public informed, yet they defend their institutions, no matter how many problems are exposed (from the conspiracy of the CBS incident, to the fad of mutating reports through exclusion of facts to push an agenda).
For all you media types, its way past time to take responsibility for the failures of your institutions, and stop trying to concentrate on imagined new issues attached to the evil blogosphere. It has not been done--the producers responsible for meeting with Kerry campaign officials in the CBS debacle refuse to leave their posts, so the fact that Dan Rather left is not good enough; Rather read a teleprompter, but only made the mistake of trusting the producers that 'produce' the news at CBS. So, the source of the problem is still in power at that outlet.
So, shut your mouth, and attend to your own affairs before you deal with concocted moral questions in an arena (internet) that doesn't play a part in your company. Why don't you media personalities give we bloggers the same freedom you persistently ask for: the ability to police ourselves. We'll see how that works out for us. So far, so good.