The following is a snip from an LA Times article about blogs. It's basically a case study using the rise and influence of TMP Media to explore the role of blogs vs. the so-called MSM. The writer does an excellent job of describing the pros and cons of blogs vs. the MSM, but one point in the article's praise of the MSM jumped out at me (emphasis added):
COLUMN ONE
By Terry McDermott, Times Staff Writer
March 17, 2007
<...>
Many critiques from both sides of the blogging-MSM divide are accurate, if sometimes misplaced. The chief criticisms of blogging from defenders of the MSM are, one, the pajama charge — that is, bloggers are not professional journalists and don't do much reporting (thus the image of them sitting at home in their pajamas) — and, two, the incivility charge, that many bloggers use impolite language.
Most bloggers, in fact, are not journalists and do little if any reporting. But most bloggers don't claim to be journalists. They're bloggers. The incivility charge is true too. Many bloggers use bad language, but so occasionally does the New Yorker, and no one accuses it of lacking manners.
<...>
Neither side in the blog-MSM debate seems to have great appreciation for what the other brings to the party.
Simply put, while mainstream media does the heavy lifting of careful, day-to-day and occasional in-depth reporting, bloggers have revivified political commentary, mainly through their exuberance.IF the traditional media see their roles as delivering lectures on the news of the day, blogs are more of a backyard conversation, friendlier, more convivial. Bloggers publish in variable lengths at uncertain and unscheduled times. Blogs tend to be informal, cheap to produce, free to consume, fast, heavily referential, self-referential and vain because of it; profane, accident-prone yet self-correcting.
To say that traditional media were slow to appreciate the power of this form is to belabor the obvious. Even bloggers were slow to appreciate the import of what they were doing. The phenomenon appeared in its embryonic form in the mid-1990s. The term "blog," a mash-up of "Web log," was coined in 1997. By 1999, blogging software was widely available, and free, and the first political blogs appeared.
more...I probably would have read this article this morning and pointed to this claim as one of the more phony arguments in favor of the MSM, that is if DUer Globalvillage hadn't alerted me to the following Daily Kos diary that calls out the AP for what the diarists refers to a "piss-yellow 'journalism,'" and I have to agree:
by theyrereal
Sat Mar 17, 2007 at 12:07:23 AM PDT
<...>
Let's take this piece of piss-yellow "journalism" apart and see just how incredibly biased it is, shall we?
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 45 minutes ago
WASHINGTON -
Valerie Plame put a glamorous face and a personal story to Democrats' criticism of the Bush administration Friday ...
So right off the bat, this entire story, according to the AP, is about nothing more than Democrats criticism of the Bush administration.
more...The diary, a must-read that dissects the article, exposing it as completely biased, reminded me of another despicable AP article. When it became evident last year that the Democrats would control the House, AP decided the best thing to do was smear the leadership and throw in a little racism:
By Andrew Taylor
ASSOCIATED PRESS
9:38 a.m. June 3, 2006
WASHINGTON – If the chips fall right for Democrats and their party seizes control of the House, President Bush's agenda on Capitol Hill would fall into the hands of some of his most dogged opponents.
It's not just would-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, but a boatload of Democrats newly running committees who would determine what legislation gets debated and which programs and agencies get scrutiny.
So who are the chairmen to be?
a Polish-American lawyer with a reputation for making witnesses quiver.
a die-hard liberal from New York's Harlem with 35 years in the House.
a free-spending progressive from Wausau, Wis.
one of the few remaining "Watergate babies" swept into Congress in 1974.
<...>
Black lawmakers would run major committees.
Besides Rangel, there is Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, in line for the top spot on the Judiciary Committee; Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi on the Homeland Security Committee; and Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida at the Intelligence Committee.
Conyers has been accused by former aides of misusing his office by turning them into baby sitters for his children. He is the prime sponsor of a resolution that seeks to investigate grounds for possible impeachment of Bush over the war in Iraq.
more... In summary, the MSM that fell down on the job in the run up to the Iraq war, in the leak case, in the WMD disinformation campaign by the WH, in the attorney firings and a host of other scandals wants to stake claim to "careful, day-to-day and occasional in-depth reporting." Also, where does "Watergate babies" and "Black lawmakers would run major committees" fit into the integrity the MSM believes it has?
Edited to add "article" to the thread title.
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