Blogs - Fact or folly?
- better than the MSM with all but those 55 of age or older.
- rate pretty much higher than our Senators and Congress folks too.
This has been at Dale's site for a while (it is clickable). The link goes to a piece by Kathleen Parker - a columnist I generally like to read. In this column, however, she does take a slap at at bloggers (those upstart ruffians that dare defy the normal journalistic apprenticeship process!).
Heh! One must graduate from a J-school and spend years learning a craft in order to ever put fingers to keyboard? Many of the elite MSM do share her outlook. What they haven't realized is that this relatively new technology is one that can be classified as a true disruptive technology - one that changes the landscape of either an industry or makes it irrelevant (and no, I am not saying that it is the latter - but look what automobiles and trains did to horses in the transportation industry, or oil did to whale hunting).
However, upon reading what she wrote, the implication that journalists are automatically better and more professional, I think of the recent event when the Editors of the New York Times (supposedly la creme de la creme of the print journalism where articles are protected by "layers of fact checkers and editors"), declared that the most famous part of the Declaration of Independence is actually part of the Constitution :
It is an eminently good thing that the anti-suicide measure would require medical specialists to keep track of veterans found to be high risks for suicide. But that’s to care for them as human beings, under that other constitutional right — to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Respect for the grave sacrifices by veterans requires the Senate to strike down the Coburn ploy and hurry this vital measure to President Bush.
(H/T: The American Pundit via Instapundit)
Heh...which amendment in the Bill of Rights is happiness?
J-School eh? Most soldiers, fresh out of high school, know that simple difference. I bet most elementary school kids know this (at least I would hope so).
More can be seen here of journalistic "mis-conduct" (and remember Jason Blair of the NYT?). However, it goes without saying, and reverse paraphrasing from Technorati, "with 94 million blogs, some will not be good either". Yes, there is stupidity on both sides.
For a more even handed treatment of blogs (and a bit of history that I was not aware of), try this....and you decide.
