Shafer Nails It

In Reaching Parity With The Exempt Media, Captains Quarters quotes:

Jack Shafer pens an interesting look at the similarities and differences between blogs and the Exempt Media, and postulates that parity may be coming between the two. In his opinion, the Schiavo memo shows that both sides can get stories equally incorrect, and that both sides should have the latitude to do so -- as long as corrections are published in a quick manner

And then writes:

The blogosphere works in a hive format, one of the reasons that the term swarm resonates so well. The strength that we have, as opposed to the Exempt Media, is that hundreds of thousands -- perhaps millions -- of readers and other bloggers have little pieces of information that seem, in isolation, to have little value. Once they start reading about a breaking story, however, those little pieces start to add up, and when a major story breaks through that can pull those threads together into a coherent narrative, the effect can be devastating.

As a conservative blogger I find myself much more in agreement with Shafer than I do with CQ and feel CQ doesn't adequately address Shafer's main point. It does in an update, but only in a superficial attempt to invalidate the main point of the piece.

Witness Shafer's lead:

Not that long ago, you had to be a professional reporter to publish defective copy. Not any more. Thanks to blogs, the journalist monopoly on the wide-scale propagation of blunders, boo-boos, and bloopers has vanished. Now, complete amateurs can embarrass themselves before huge audiences.

A story lead has a reason for being and is not meant simply as an initial meandering segue into whatever point the writer or a linker might care to make. Contrast Shafer's lead with CQ's added conclusion:

UPDATE: I should make clear that I disagree with Shafer's assertion that Power Line and Michelle Malkin got the Schiavo memo story incorrect. First off, Michelle never drew any conclusions from the memo story except that the initial reporting from ABC and the Washington Post left much to be desired, which is still the case.

Both media outlets pushed the memo as having come from GOP party "leaders" and treated it as a smoking gun for hypocrisy, neither of which held up when the true story came out. Power Line postulated that the memo could have come from Democratic staffers as a dirty trick -- but as only one of a number of possible explanations, and clearly stated that as speculation.

All of us were surprised that a Republican staffer for a freshman Senator would be stupid enough to create something this illiterate and foolish memo ... but it turned out it was.

It's too easy to ignore the credible and justified criticism of Mike Allen and ABC that Malkin, Power Line, and others provided as a winner-take-all, zero-sum win or loss. If the more speculative possiblilities (sic) did not pan out, it is without a doubt that the characterization of this memo by ABC and the Post didn't either. Quite frankly, if Power Line hadn't stepped up and held ABC and the Post's feet to the fire, we'd still be hearing that this memo came from Frist and the other GOP leaders in the Senate.

I predicted that CQ, Powerline et al would claim precisely what CQ now does in the face of criticism on the mini memo gate story - and that the claim is unjustified. Here's what I wrote days ago:

There is no credit due Powerline for "breaking" a story ... following the tact they chose, there was no story. And as for "pursuing" the story, it seems the MSM did that in this case and Powerline's "reporting" did little more than muddy the waters with speculation and innuendo while it went on.

Powerline and or the blogs can, if they choose, and they likely will call this a great victory because they kept the heat on the MSM. But that, too, is really only speculation. There is nothing to suggest that competing MSM outlets wouldn't have dug to get to the bottom of this for their own competitive reasons, quite apart from whatever Powerline chose to do.

Now, CQ says "It's too easy to ignore the credible and justified criticism of Mike Allen and ABC that Malkin, Power Line, and others provided..."

Kind of ironic that CQ is now doing the vary same thing that led many people to begin blogging - IE ignoring criticism of colleagues and simply anointing their mistakes as credible and justified while not approaching anything like objectivity or supported argument to counter. For the record, I've never posted on Malkin's coverage of the issue and only took exception to Powerline's postings; some of which if they had a favorite color, it would be yellow - as in journalism.

More and more of what I see on some large blogs is yellow journalism and self validation to the point they look more like a vanity press, than a news source.

From CQ:

The strength that we have, as opposed to the Exempt Media, is that hundreds of thousands -- perhaps millions -- of readers and other bloggers have little pieces of information

In that kind of structure, I acted as an editor with a field staff bring many disparate pieces of information. Not only did I choose what information should and should not get published (on CQ, anyway), but then I acted as a reporter in redrafting the narrative to fit all of the information. In short, I assumed the natural editorial functions of a newspaper staff, along with the roles of publisher and journalist.

As I have posted before, I think the hive theory is greatly overstated and more and more comprised of small groups who think the same, write the same, etc. That's more validation than research in my opinion - and the small group of most often read conservative bloggers right now seem more guilty of it than anyone.

There's another interesting quote from Shafer CQ doesn't address:

I started writing press criticism at Washington City Paper back in 1986, because as editor I couldn't get anybody else to do it. Writers were frightened that if they penned something scathing about the Washington Post or the New York Times they'd screw themselves out of a future job. Today, the sort of dagger and epee work I used to perform on big media gets done by hundreds of bloggers before I can rise and read the morning paper. Thanks to blogs, we've gone from a culture where few criticized the press to one where it's the new national pastime.

The currency may have changed as few bloggers do it as a job - but the fact is a great many bloggers won't openly criticize the large blogs because they fear they won't get links. And what criticism that does take place among bloggers is often only the worse kind of dogmatic infighting between blogs on the right versus the left that rarely if ever results in anything like compromise, enlightenment or agreement.

Shafer is also spot on when he says that blogs are great at opinion journalism and, with some notable exceptions, hardly even playing in the news space, yet.

Bloggers are making the MSM better. What remains to be determined is what will emerge to make blogs better, because they certainly need improvement in some regards. Otherwise they run the risk of becoming just a bunch of political mouthpieces with no real high ground to claim as their own.

The many smaller blogs who disagreed with Powerline's coverage and tone during mini-memo gate and might still not be thrilled with their seeming lack of accountability in its conclusion went unheard, unread and unlinked - that isn't open source journalism, it's the same old close minded cronyism we can get from many newspaper editorial pages, or the Sunday morning network talk shows.

Comments

[Steel]

Are you getting circulation on this? You sure as hell should be ... but I don't see it elsewhere.

[Steel]

was just talking to my brother about this. It occurred to me that you and a handful of
others are becoming the 2nd wave of blogging. The guys who were in on it early have
become that which they howled about. They have lost that which started them and are
now like the MSM ... staid and non innovative. I take heart in knowing I can watch the
rise of the 'new blogosphere'. So should you. I just added BNN to my bookmarks and
I think I'll roll it too. Just keep banging away man, the next year will be good for you.

[flenser]

Except that Schafer is full of crap, as I pointed out in a post which you deleted.

Did you write the fawning fan mail yourself?

[Dan]

"I believe that objective observation this time out could easily lead to the conclusion that there was more conclusion jumping, false assumption and premature casting of aspersion done by Powerline in this case than by the MSM against the right."

Unless you are possession of some facts I have not seen, I don't see how you can say this. The most charitable explanation for the MSM behavior is that they "jumped" to the concluson that this was a "GOP talking points memo", that it was in fact "A one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders". Those are Mike Allens own words. And they are not correct.

http://news.orb6.com/stories/washpost/
20050320/a49701_2005mar19.php

He either jumped to a conclusion, or he lied. I imagine it was the former, although given media behavior of late you cannot be sure.

It is unfortunate that so many right-wing bloggers are willing to team up with the enemy to bring down one of their own. Reminds me of the scene in Braveheart where Longshanks is able to set the Scots against each other.

Maybe everyone needs to remember Reagan's eleventh commandment; thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.

[Dan]

I have no idea why your comment wasn't showing up. I never even looked at it on the post, as I responded in email. I snipped the text from the stored comment in my configuration files and reposted above. I'll see if I can edit the attribution back to you. I never delete comments except for spam, or purely vulgar loons.

[Jane]

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