Battleangel

Columbia Journalism Review has a rather thought-provoking story about the apparent success of bloggers in the CBS News memo affair. Most notably how bloggers tended to pat themselves and each other on the back and celebrate the success over mainstream media and the elites. And how they fell into the same bottomless journalistic pit as CBS for not checking facts and indulging even more openly in partisanship.

A historic moment sure. And a breakthrough for blogging. But not for the right reasons and certainly not handled with delicacy or care. And what would you expect when neo-con wet dream and choirboy Little Green Footballs got involved. I’ve ended up on that site more than once and more than furious. These sites deserve a more lengthy review but suffice it to say, they mostly resort to oral flatulence that coincide with elitist views and a bias that already exists in so called main stream media. Not very constructive and original. Hardly the battle of Agincourt that someone is quoted saying in the article. I’m inclined to agree that what we’ve seen here is not only the success of independent news reporting in the form of blogging but also the success of the mob.

I still remember the last time bloggers rose to the call, and supposedly emerged victorious if it hadn’t been for that little Sean-Paul Kelley (of Agonist.org) snag. Though his rather benign ‘plagiarizing’ was but a breeze compared to this, the evidence up until now indicates that us bloggers perhaps shouldn’t pat ourselves on the back just yet. Nor expect or attempt to put anyone out of business just yet. There is a reason people go to journalist school, really. Stick to your sandals (shoemaker). I am beginning to suspect where this road is going.