February 15, 2005, 11.35pm • 61 comments » • 2,046 Views

Scrutiny on steroids - “Rather and Jordan were just practice laps”

www.blogmaverick.com” href=”http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000787031740/”>Mark Cuban sums up better than I what I was trying to say yesterday about the flavour of “journalism” bloggers are coming to be known for practicing (picking up on indiscretions and, like a dog with a bone, not letting go until the result is a resignation).

I had said this way in which journobloggers operate is akin to British tabloids. Cuban says:-

In the world of political blogging, bloggers are the new paparazzi and the traditional news media reporters and columnists are the new targets. … Its [sic] payback time. The bloggers are here, and they are ready to knock down the gates and get their pound of flesh. The traditional media has no idea what is about to hit them.

Dan Rather and Eason Jordan were just practice laps. Let me assure you that from now on, EVERYTHING said. Every video shown. Every picture presented from any traditional media source is going to be scrutinized. The level of scrutiny will make your editors blush.

Someone replying to Mark said he has stopped reading bloggers because it felt like reading a tabloid.

Paparazzi may not be an entirely accurate analogy for some journobloggers, many of whom do try and do some digging and original research in the course of their writing. Sometimes, journobloggers don’t merely reflect the visible world, they dig beneath it and report from it.

Six Apart VP Anil Dash, too, has had enough of what he calls “more myopic blogger triumphalism”:-

We’re just barely into the phase where normal people have heard the word “blog”, and the zealous political bloggers who form a loud, obnoxious minority of bloggers have decided they want their grandmothers to think of blogging as “that thing that gets journalists fired”.

Lots of good comments and Trackbacks there, too.

Update (Feb 16, 2005): Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal, which claimed to have written the major news organisation treatment of the story, tries to inject some sobriety into proceedings:-

Easongate is not Rathergate.

It does not speak well of CNN that it apparently allowed itself to be stampeded by this Internet and talk-show crew. [It has an obligation] to show the good judgment and sense of proportion that distinguishes professional journalism from the enthusiasms and vendettas of amateurs.

No doubt this point of view will get us described as part of the “mainstream media.” But we’ll take that as a compliment since we’ve long believed that these columns do in fact represent the American mainstream. We hope readers buy our newspaper because we make grown-up decisions about what is newsworthy, and what isn’t.

A comment from Jeff Jarvis illustrates the original point about the kind of “journalism” journoblogging is becoming:-

If seeking truth from power is the action of a lynch mob, then all of journalism is a lynch mob and welcome to it.

And Dave Winer is getting all excitable:-

In the end we’ll all be bloggers, because the idea of a media company will seem as silly as the idea of a telephone company will be in a few years, or an airline is today.