Retired journalist Eric Engberg wrote a smug little piece at CBS.com today about the blogosphere. In a nut shell, he looks down his nose at the blogs for their coverage on election day, most notably the coverage of the exit polls. I'll give Engberg this, he is correct in his assertion that the blogosphere handled the exit polls poorly. Engberg misses the big picture, though.
Many blogs seriously f'd up on Tuesday. As the exit polls began to leak out, they reacted. One of the advantages to blogs is that they are a free marketplace of ideas, one that is very self correcting-over time. Unfortunately, the blogosphere, in the short term, can also compound an error. That is what we saw on Tuesday. The exit polls numbers leaked, and people either got very excited, or they panicked, depending on which side of the issue they were on. They wrote of their panic. Then they read some of their peers, and they became more panicked. Meanwhile, the MSM, which has had experience with the exit polls in the past, and which learned their lessons from 2000, was a steady rock, reporting news without the extremes created by the poor exit poll numbers. It was a big day for the MSM-they did almost everything right (almost-more later). It was a bad day for the blogosphere. Its strong point, reactiveness, was it's biggest weakness.
Here's the big picture that Engberg misses though. Journalism is not the hallowed profession he tries to portray it as being. The entire article is his pride speaking. The fact is that journalism really is a very low profession. For much of it's existence it has been little more than what we now call tabloid journalism. Somewhere during the 20th century, the American media made strides towards becoming respected. By and large, it succeeded. The problem is, the news media also became very homogeneous as well. Most news rooms are liberal, and their news comes out with a severe liberal tilt now. The days where you could by two newspapers in order to get both sides of the issue came to an end in the name of this respectability. Unfortunately, that means almost all the news came from one particular viewpoint. It is my opinion that it is for this very reason that Vietnam became the mess that it did. Liberals bought into the anti-Vietnam mindset hook, line, and sinker. There were few places that a person sympathetic to what we were doing in Vietnam could go to get an alternate opinion. Once flooded with the anti-Vietnam line from the media, the public support for the war evaporated. Things began to change for the established media when Fox debuted and the blogosphere developed. They had an opposing view point to deal with now, and they are not happy.
The news marketplace is no different than any other marketplace. It is at its strongest when their is competition and diversity. We are moving back towards a time of diverse viewpoints in the news. Many people cringe when they look back at the days of very political newspapers, when each city had at least one Democratic paper and one Republican paper. I applaud it. Were the papers of the 1800's over the top? Without a doubt. That doesn't mean it will over even can be today, because the market is larger and more vibrant. It is better for people to be able to read, listen to, or watch multiple viewpoints and come to their own decisions than it is for them to be spoon fed the one viewpoint.
The blogosphere disdains the media because of its homogeneity. The MSM disdains the blogosphere because of its inroads into their hallowed profession. The fact is they both really need each other right now, and will be made better because of their competition. The Eric Engbergs of the world see their life's work diminished because others who have not put in the sweat are doing it as well, if not better. The blogosphere should probably recognize that it is not holier than thou, and susceptible to the same mistakes that MSM, only they don't have the experience the MSM does in catching those mistakes. In the end, though, the blogosphere is a piece of the news media pie now, and a very worthwhile piece for the public.
1 comment:
Not having read a single story about the phoney exit polls on election day, I was not disturbed by them. I didn't listen to any coverage - tv, radio, or newspaper all day, knowing the media propensity for mischief. The exit polls in question were conducted on behalf of a consortium of news media and leaked by a member of that same consortium, which hardly makes it mishandling by bloggers. If anything, it confirms my belief that it was a deliberate fraud on the part of the media.
As for bloggers and elections, bloggers are public letter writers, most with no more specialized knowledge than the journalists who regularly pan them. What bloggers do have, though, is an honest desire to find out what is happening and an integrity that is sorely missing in the newsroom. Working in pajamas and for nothing makes most of us fairly independent thinkers and a much needed balance to newspapers who have become so arrogant they feel they don't even need subscribers anymore. Their job is to lecture; ours is to listen. Sounds suspiciously like European socialism they so love.
Newspapers are not, contrary to opinion, market-driven. Most instructive on this was the sale of the Los Angeles Times. They were billions of dollars in debt when they were sold -- debt assumed by the Chicago Tribune -- debt in the billions despite a five year sell off of everything but the Times Mirror building. If they had been market driven, they would not have subscribership less than they had in the 1960s. Newspapers wouldn't have to fake subscribership. On the contrary, the media is in the power business, promoting candidates, pushing agendas, shaping debates, lording it over citizens, and driving their wholly-owned Democrat party into oblivion. In that they are part of a global media empire that wants to dictate our future without our participation or input. What bloggers can do is expose their bias, reveal their flaws, and provide balance.
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