If you can't beat 'em, don't join 'em!

Speaking of the limitations of blogging, Environmental Republican makes a telling observation:

Blogs can't compete with this onslaught. While the blogosphere is a major part of the information wagon train, they are much better with slower moving issues such as the Dan Rather affair or the Trent Lott kerfuffle.

I'm not saying that blogs have not provided a service during this disaster because they have proved to be a tremendous resource with raising donations and such. What I am saying is that during any type of disaster--especially in August when the Cindy Sheehan peace train lost its interest--the news networks have no peer when it comes to setting the agenda.

In the coming weeks and months, the blogosphere will pick apart the lies and distortions that have been flowing from the MSM, that is what we do.

(Via Glenn Reynolds.)

How very, very, true. (That doesn't make blogs bad, though.)

Because bloggers get their "food" from the MSM, the relationship between bloggers and the MSM is inherently one of parasite and host:

Analysis cannot occur in any legitimate fashion without a base of facts. These are provided to the blogosphere by the mainstream media -- the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the network news organizations and dozens of other media outlets around the world. The reason the MSM evinces the irrational hostility it does to the blogosphere is that they correctly understand that bloggers are parasites. The linking capability on which all bloggers depend is the means by which the parasite attaches to the host. And without the host there is no source of nourishment.

I'm not downplaying the importance of the role bloggers can play. Blogs can be effective at fact-checking the hypothetical facts which have been gathered by the host. They can improve on the quality of analysis provided by those who are so close to the story or the actors that their judgment becomes blurred, biased, or myopic. In short, they can be useful parasites.

Still, it is folly to dream of the blogosphere replacing or even reducing the importance of the mainstream media. They're the big dog and will remain so. If some of them plunge into oblivion because they can't abide the new infestation of parasites, that doesn't mean the MSM is going away. It means that if the New York Times or the L.A. Times fail, they will be replaced by other mainstream media that do a better job of accumulating and reporting the facts.

How, then, should bloggers view the blogosphere? To each his own, of course, but I see it as a gigantic Letters to the Editor department. There's no shortage of column inches for letter writers, and so our letters can be a lot harder to ignore, but we still need them more than they need us, and we would be wise not to forget it.

I plead guilty to regularly using the MSM news as food, as fuel, for my blog. (Much of the time, but not all of the time.) But I also try to offer perspective, and I try to offer as many tidbits of personal insight, philosophy, and experience as I can. The idea that I would "replace" the MSM is laughable though, and I'd never aspire to such a thing. I don't want to be a reporter, or a "journalist" -- and there's no law requiring me to do so (any more than I'm required to be a "conservative" or a "liberal"). I'm just doing what I do, and I don't stop much to reflect on why.

Another frequently made observation is that lots of bloggers were trained as lawyers, and are highly skilled at wading through details with a critical and discerning eye for errors, contradictions, and mistakes in logic. This complements the MSM, because the training received by journalists is very different. In my opinion, lawyers would do a better job as reporters, but it won't happen because they lack degrees in journalism, and wouldn't want to accept the cut in pay that working for a newspaper would entail.

"Useful parasitism" will have to do for now. It's better than the useless variety (even if I'd prefer that it evolve into something more, er, symbiotic....)

Good writing never hurts, either. (But that's something that years ago I was warned law schools tend to destroy.)

posted by Eric on 09.03.05 at 09:50 AM





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Comments

I'm glad you're not a mere journalist. I wouldn't read you if you were.

I at the micro level, however, specialist blogs can compete with the MSM. I'm part of a small group of bloggers than write about the United Methodist Church. We interview and talk with major personages in the UMC on a routine basis and are direct competitors with the news services within the UMC.

I think that the view that bloggers cannot be anything other than parasites comes from blogger impatience -- starting your blog one day and expecting to be Instapundit next week. Bloggers should instead focus on a microniche and work their way up from the bottom.

John   ·  September 4, 2005 08:08 AM


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