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CBS Sees no Journalism in Blogs
hende_jman writes "CBS News online has an article comparing some politics-oriented blogs to the kind of stuff they used to run in the author's school newspaper. It's an interesting read that has some valid critiques of the format as far as journalistic integrity is concerned (not that CBS hasn't been without its problems)."
Kerry was "in striking distance" in Florida and Ohio, said the Drudge Report.
;-) I guess it could have been the same with any other channel and it might have just been their methods/algorithms but take it for what it's worth.
.02
And last election FoxNews claimed victory for Bush well before it was officially called. All media outlets have their own biases that they use daily on a large cross-section of stories. Hell, some news stations go so far as to create near pandemonium out of stories like "Are our college students on death row in their dorm rooms?" when they are comparing jail cell fires to dorms?
Big plans and big claims are to be expected from folks - pajama-clad or not - who are dabbling with new technology and new modalities of public expression.
Coming from someone writing for the big dogs I can honestly say I'm not surprised. What the hell else was he going to say? "Oh, the mainstream media is fucking dead. The Internet will take over as the true purveyor of news? Yeah, that would have been printed...
You did not see any of the networks or the AP put out misleading reports of a Kerry lead nationally - or in the battleground states of Florida or Ohio. The editors, producers and executives who run these MSM organizations, in typical responsible, dinosaur fashion, know it would be wrong to do so.
From the little bit of flipping I did between the Daily Show, FoxNews, and NBC I was seeing quite a bit more information coming earlier from FoxNews about which states Bush had won and what they were projecting... I didn't see that so much from NBC and I certainly didn't see it on the Daily Show
His constant comparison of the blogs to his school newspaper is rather annoying and honestly quite childish. Perhaps we should heed his words and pretty much ignore what we see on the Internet from the "media outlets". If he really wanted me to listen to what he said he should have done some quote for quote comparisons between the blogs and traditional media outlet's stories and shown where exactly the blogs were lacking. Maybe that would have even helped the blogs.
Making mention of Drudge as your main point is really sad. Drudge has a lot of funny stuff but you have to take most of it at face value. I certainly don't read it often mostly because it's fluff and bullshit. Perhaps this guy should have done some googling and found some valid political blog sites and then done his comparison.
That's my worthless
I read this story yesterday, and it turned out the editor's speculation was wrong! When they issued a "retraction" they didn't apologize, and that editor added some political spin to it!
At the same time, Taco, the fact that you and other Slashdot editors so horribly mangle summaries and headlines alike does nothing but lend creedence to Engberg's mindset. This article is an opinion piece. That means that the opinion expressed therein does not reflect the opinions of CBS, Major League Baseball, or Sane People. The headline should read "Engberg Sees No Journalism in Blogs".
Quit giving blowhards like Engberg such easy fodder. Show some interest in getting it right, not making it hot, dammit!
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
The problem is that the mainstream media tries to paint itself as some kind of oracle of information. The "blogosphere" is an organic system in that there is no official channel for information. So for instance, when Dan Rather stated to the world that the Bush National Guard documents were proof that Bush was AWOL, where were the dissenting voices? Where was the actual analysis?
Instead what we got was CBS news using blatant forgeries, selectively shopping them around to "experts" and pushing a story that doesn't even pass the smell test. The Bush docs story stunk to high heaven, and it took bloggers a matter of hours to determine that CBS lied through their teeth. Bloggers like those at Powerline devastated CBS' story because the media was not willing to do the ground work they should have. Whether that was through sheer laziness or bias I will leave as an exercise to the reader.
The mainstream media doesn't do reporting anymore. The blogosphere allows for a lot of crap, but through that crap comes a lot of valuable research. How many Iraqis are allowed to give their opinions on the nightly newscasts? Yet I can chose any number of Iraqi blogs and get a point of view that I would never see on the evening newscast - and because of it I've learned things about Iraqi culture and the situation there that the media would never have time to delve into.
It would be much better if those crying about the lack of journalistic standards with bloggers were any better - but the only thing that seems to separate journalists from bloggers these days is that bloggers have a greater tendency to check their sources when called and don't carry around the façade of officious objectivity like a shield.
Quite frankly, I give more credence to Glenn Reynolds than I do to Jayson Blair, Howell Raines, Andrew Gilligan, or Dan Rather - all of whom have shown that the combination of arrogance and groupthink in the mainstream media is far more pernicious than the open biases of bloggers.
Close, but not quite:
In the mainstream, journalism isn't dead, but reporting's been pushing up the daisies since the 70s.
What CBS does is "Journalism". Figure out what sort of story you want to tell, then send a guy out with a camera (or dig up some stock footage) who can come up with the iamges to tell the story.
Terrorist? Freedom fighter? No problem, we'll find someone to argue both points. Dirtball spammer? Ethikul small bidnidman and oppressed ontreprenooer? All the same to us! Safe car? Time bomb? We've spent a lot of money on this story so far, and we're not gonna throw it away, so let's rig the test to make sure it blows up real good! Obvious Microsoft Word forgery? Story's what we want it to be no matter how obvious the forgery is? No problem, we'll pay off a handwriting expert who's not even taken seriously in his own loopy field, and a couple of Democrat partisans to distract you from the real issue and to repatedly drub it into your silly little minds that our story is true, even though all the evidence we've brought before you is actually pure, Grade-D bullshit.
CBS: All journalism, all the time.
What bloggers do is "Reporting". Look at the screen (or listen to the scanner, or check your IMs and emails from your inside source), and state what's happening. Then spin it -- but always making it clear what parts are spin and what parts are fact.
Blogs: All reporting. "Here's the numbers: K57/B43. Because I support [Kerry|Bush], I think that's [great|horrible]. Be warned that these numbers are unconfirmed. Take with huge grain of salt. I'll report more numbers as I find them."
> > CBS Sees no Journalism in Blogs
I'm tired of getting my news spun for me. I just want the goddamn facts, separated from the spin. Blogs serve this purpose. The mainstream media used to -- but hasn't in decades. No journalism in Blogs? GOOD.
BIG MEDIA: Bloggers are at best, amature journalists. They don't have *our* skill at conducting important, investigative journalisim.
BLOGGERS: What about FOX, with their 'fair and balanced' coverage of news? And why is everyone starting to mimic them?
BIG MEDIA: But, but, er...um, that is...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!