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Bloggers - Beowolf Cluster of Fact Checkers?
d3ik writes "Wired has an interesting take on bloggers role in journalism and politics. I've never been comfortable with news discussions sites being called blogs... but I guess "news discussion sites" isn't as catchy. Anyway, the article makes some good points on the role of bloggers in fact-checking (read: tearing apart) some of the stories and claims that the huddled masses would normally take as fact."
I think that instead of shaping up the news media, blogger attacks are just going to make them more timid. I can't remember the last time I was watching a news conference and when someone asked something I shouted at the TV "that was a DAMN FUCKING good question."
Most of the questions asked nowadays are softball questions. "Mr. Bush, are you going to let Mrs. Bush decorate the Oval Office, or will you hire an outside decorator. And what would you like the voters to know about that decision?"
Now that Dan Rather went out on a limb and got burned, nobody else is going to go out on a limb. That means that nobody is ever going to ask Mr. Bush where the WMD are, where Osama is, how many have to die, did you really do coke at Camp David, and why the hell aren't we doing anything about the Sudan, Iran, or North Korea?
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
Heck, when you're this far left, Stalin looks like a right wing reactionary. You probably think Che is an agrarian reformer and Mugabe a civil rights pioneer.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.