The Power of the Blog

Over the twenty months or so that this blog has been active, I've occasionally chastised bloggers for taking themselves too seriously. I've said and still say that too many bloggers consider themselves journalists, but they show none of the professionalism or accountability that it takes to be taken as seriously as they want to be taken.

That being said, I think there is room for praise. Blogs have made a distinct difference in this election season--especially the right leaning blogs, though, of course, not limited to that group.

It's been accepted that the media delivers 15% of the vote by influencing the way citizens perceive the issues. The mainstream media has a unique podium from which they can frame the debate and color the perception of their viewers and readers. This election cycle, though, blogs have cut deep into that media-delivered vote. And, no doubt, the media wants to keep its traditional influence.

Along with eagerly receptive right-leaning media outlets (which continue to define their own importance), blogs and their readers have formed a quickly mobilized, passionate, and impressively capable group of instant fact-checkers.

Without these willing workers, what would have happened with the bogus 60 Minutes story and how would it have effected the vote? And while the current missing explosives story is still headline news--news that the New York Times was willing to run with although facts were in seriously short supply--what would the response have been if there wasn't this growing media alternative resisting the blind acceptance of the newspaper's story?

Credit where credit is due: blogs have made a difference, and traditional media outlets are having to change themselves to accommodate the change.

Good for us. I mean that as a citizen of this country who finds blogs to be an amazing (and, at times, amazingly flawed) expression of free speech.

While there still seems to be too much emphasis placed on the "gotcha" aspect of finding discrepancies (did Kerry really run in the Boston Marathon?) and embracing things that seem to me to border on conspiracy theories (what was Kerry pulling out of his pocket in that first debate--and what was that thing under President Bush's suit coat?), that is probably to be expected. The first taste of influence is probably leading people to reach aggressively for the next and the next--and making the same mistake that 60 Minutes made, if the truth be told.

That is, the news program wanted the story to be true, and wanted to run with something that would damage President Bush, so that ignored the warning signs and failed to check carefully before unleashing wild rumors on the public. The lure of the "gotcha" was just too much for them.

I view the Kerry's Got a Pen Non-Scandal as something similar. Too many people were hoping that there was a story there that they started the rumors well before any facts were established. The end result was a lot of spinning of wheels, a ton of frantic noise, and the final, deflated realization that sometimes a pen is just a pen.

I'm not staking out a moral high ground here or pointing fingers--I got worked up about a similar story myself. What I'm trying to say is that if we expect professionalism and adherence to the truth from mainstream media outlets, and if we crucify them when they fail, then we have an obligation to be just as vigilant about the truth ourselves. Sometimes that means holding back a story until we can verify the facts.

Which is all a grand way to introduce something that is well worth the time and effort to download and read. Wizbang is distributing "The Global War On Terror - Where We Stand," a PDF that takes a long look, specifically, at where America stands in Iraq. There are no gotcha moments, no wild claims, just a sober look at the situation and an analysis of the available data.

This is what I value most about blogs: the analysis and the discussion.

Read the online version or download the PDF here.

Posted by zombyboy at October 28, 2004 01:17 PM