“Can Bloggers Save Journalism?”

No.

Bloggers are not journalists, they are too partisan and Andrew Sullivan is more partisan than most.

I burnt CDs of your show on Obama at the very beginning of the campaign that had Sullivan on it. I gave those CDs to my friends and relatives who were undecided. Some of these people are Republicans. That single show turned most of these people into Obama supporters and it was Sullivan’s words that did it.

I’m no fan of Sullivan’s politics but he’s credible and articulate and obviously persuasive.

As for blogging competing with “serious” journalism, the days of CBS news with Cronkite and Friendly are long over and while I think there are important differences between The NewsHour, FOX news, the Daily Dish and Huffington Post it’s up to us to aggregate a large number of viewpoints and crunch them into our own world view.

This has always been true, there are simply more channels now.

“Can Bloggers Save Journalism?”

“No.

Bloggers are not journalists, they are too partisan and Andrew Sullivan is more partisan than most.”

Some bloggers are journalists and some aren’t. A blogger is really just from my understanding someone who posts their comments online in a journal fashion exclusively. I think for example Chuck Todd who I believe had a ticker blog during the conventions and presidential debates would be a little bit surprised that you think of him as a partisan.

As to the question at hand, ugh…the internet has done many wonderful things. One thing it hasn’t done in my opinion is increase the quality of news; the quantity yes but not the quality. I don’t deny that there are probably many quality sources online. That said I don’t think the quality ones outweigh the poor quality ones. When I think of blogs I can’t help but think of many severely partisan sources such as Daily Kos, Townhall.com, Moveon.org, and the Drudge Report all of which have a corrosive effect on democracy.

Then I also am reminded of silly news stories like the world’s fattest man getting married and finally conspiracy theories like Sarah Palin supposedly covering up her daughter’s pregnancy and the twin towers being exploded from the inside.

Blogging and journalism have been at odds since the early 2000s because many journalists feel (as do I) that bloggers don’t have the training that is often required for a reporter to remain ethically above board and journalistically on-point.

Conversely, there are many people who believe that blogging in some cases is just the manifestation of ‘citizen journalism’ and if the content is good enough it should qualify as journalism.

Trade shows, corporations and even political campaigns are giving press credentials to bloggers who have proven themselves as impartial reporters.

The interesting thing about where I sit is that I’m a journalist who blogs. That means that sometimes my writing receives more scrutiny than it might otherwise.

For instance, in 2005 I was accepting advertising fees for some of my posts on a blog I had clearly labeled as opinion and not journalism.

Regardless, a reporter from the Boston Globe wrote a full page story on how I was accepting money to write about products that appeared in my posts. I contacted the reporter and informed her that she hadn’t taken the time to understand the complete blogging picture. But since then I’ve left all paid links out of my columns and articles and have only run adsense and other ads around my news.

I think as the environment changes and papers lean toward online distribution (Christian Science Monitor), the lines will continue to blur and firms that are respected in the print realm will have to work very hard to coordinate and regulate their online presence.

Bringing up the Globe again, it’s been reported that Boston.com and the Boston Globe have very separate management. The news that shows up on Boston.com is often shoddy, typo-filled and has glimmers of opinion in some pieces. And unless I see a recognized reporter’s name on an article that appears on Boston.com (as they do pick up a lot of the paper verbatim) I take those stories with a grain of salt.

You can see some of my blogs and my distinct writing styles at:

http://www.jeffcutler.com
http://www.thingstoworryabout.com
http://www.tdf08.com
http://www.bowlofcheese.com
http://jeffsnotes.com

as well as on other sites where I have been contracted to write:

http://savvyauntie.com
http://www.macnn.com
http://www.mobilemag.com

Thanks,

Jeff

Given the lofty headline for the second hour of today’s show, are you willing to confront your guests with the following?

Based on no evidence and under The Atlantic’s historic nameplate, Mr. Sullivan engages in rank speculation – in words and images – about whether Gov. Palin really is the mother of her 5th child and/or whether Mr. Palin is the biological father. He claims that if she’d just release her birth records all this could be cleared up. (In other words, let’s throw it against the wall and see if it sticks.) Yet Mr. Sullivan never demands medical records of Sen. Obama (so far, all he’s released is a cursory one-page letter from his doctor), even though the Democratic nominee has a family history of cancer and a personal history that includes smoking. Why should a serious reader see this as anything but yellow journalism?

For her part, Ms. Brown’s Daily Beast actually posted a clip from a porn video, produced by Larry Flynt, that mocks Gov. Palin, called “Nailin’ Palin.” The Web is riddled with “obscene” racist material that mocks Sen. Obama, but The Beast doesn’t post any of it – nor should you. So, why was this Flynt clip posted? Why was it later removed? After all, if this is actual journalism instead of yellow journalism, why did Ms. Brown fail to stand by it?

John

Bloggers cannot save journalism because it is just another form of “journalism”. As long as a majority of “journalism” are biased and used as MARKETING tools to influence the masses, it will go down like those political attack ads.

I started to listen to On Point a few years ago because I found the general topics very interesting. However, I was very disappointed when it comes to politics because the host and most guests are trying very hard to sell a candidate and the show becomes an info-mercial.

It becomes very clear when I put my marketing and sales glasses on, N-Public-R has to cater its shows and messages to its contributors. Public does not equate to un-biased. Money can buy influence and it has been proven around the world.

John: As a regular reader of Sullivan’s blog I can assure he has more than once chided Obama for releasing his medical records. Read back through the past 30 days and you will see he has been consistent in his criticism of both candidates.

Navigating and evaluating the world of blogs can be pretty overwhelming. Do you think there is a way to create a peer-review system to give readers a better understanding of the general quality and veracity of blogs, or maybe an algorithm based on links and citations like a blog impact factor?

At the very least, bloggers keep journalists on their toes by checking facts and asking questions journalists may not ask for fear of losing access. Bloggers have less to lose. Bloggers and journalists can and should work together and against each other to raise standards all around. In the next presidential election, there should be a blogger-sponsored debate between the candidates with questions from blogger-participants from the whole spectrum and real-time fact-checking so when a candidate is proven to be telling a lie, he or she must admit it on the spot.

I love reading blogs, Andrew’s included. But I think of bloggers more as commentators than journalists. Blogs, by and large, tend to be very opinionated, making no pretense toward objectivity.

Yes and no. I think the problem with the dissemination of media is the narrowing of viewpoint. Sites like Redstate have gone beyond the pale with yellow journalism. I think even National Review is perhaps so opinionated they have become propaganda. Obama isn’t a communist. He wasn’t born in Kenya. Palin isn’t the American Taliban. I can read that stuff in blogs.

The danger is the lies they spread. Blogs like Andrew’s or Alterman’s have a POV but stick to truths to promote them. Others spread hatred as virulent as 1930s Germany.

What happens when people believe Obama is a communist Muslim born in Kenya and about to be President? What would happen if people believe A theocracy is coming under Palin? Nothing good becomes of hate.

I think a tightening of slander law to protect us against hate speech is in order. I just don’t know how you limit lies that inflame and may lead to violence from free speech.

The vilification of the MSM by the right terrifies me. If the Post or the Times are in the bag, are Blogs that spread lies to be believed instead? Read some right-wing blogs and you will be afraid, afraid for the health of a republic if any number of people believe those blogs speak facts.

Frankly, I think objectivity is overrated – I do want the facts, but then I do want some opinion as well, especially from people who know more about the subject. If a candidate presents their health plan, I want to hear opinions about it, not just a rehashing of the policy. And now, I don’t have to have that opinion filtered through a TV network, or a newspaper.

In this age of conglomerates taking over media companies, and those companies then pushing a “point of view” – we very much NEED blogs to get at the other side, because no matter which side you’re on, there is another side to be presented.

Newspapers are so 20th century. I mean, come on, a stack of *paper*! Ironically, however, it was Andrew’s blog which compelled me to recently subscribe to the dead-tree “Atlantic Monthly.” But I’ve stopped reading –and carrying around — the Sunday New York Times paper edition, since, for example, I don’t have to wait to read Frank Rich’s column, which is available online Saturday night.

As both a blogger and a professional technology journalist, I’d say that bloggers can and will drive paid opinion journalism into the dustbin of history where it belongs. Don’t cry for George Will and David Broder, though — they’ve still got TV and books.

Bloggers can support, expand and in some cases spearhead investigative journalism projects as well, and in fact, already are.

What worries me, however, is that along with sinking newspapers and magazines we are potentially losing institutional tracks to journalistic professionalism, as well as well-heeled organizations able to fund more expensive, long-term journalistic projects that can involve travel costs and payroll investments that do not yield immediate, daily results.

I’m also deeply skeptical of the online news aggregators — think Google News. I see, particularly in technology journalim, that these aggregators are absolutely driving what stories get covered, when … disproportionate media resources are now spent attempting to get the attention of such aggregrators, which drive Web traffic and thus advertising.

The result is a mob mentality that incentivizes the working and re-working of a popular, high-traffic story without adding much in the way of additional information to what’s already out there, all in an effort to move up the ladder of a Google News ’story cluster’. What’s disincentivized is original, enterprise reporting — because it doesn’t get traffic until others report the same story, by which time the original scoop will likely have fallen out of the cluster.

And that’s a real problem.

I don’t mind opinion. I like it. I favor Andrew’s blog. The problem is the blogs that spread propaganda. By that I mean opinion of lies rather than opinion of truths

Andrew, you have a great blog, but why don’t you enable comments, moderated or otherwise? Some say a blog with no comments allowed is not really a blog…

It is disappointing to hear that traditional journalism is in trouble. I am increasingly concerned as I see the American critical thought process get watered down. This has been painfully evident in our public schools.

Bloggers do not have the responsibility that traditional journalists have, or their standards for annotation. If they get something wrong they can hit delete and they will not suffer for stories that turn out to be absolutely wrong. Newspapers, print, and TV news must create stories that stand up to the test of time and journalists throughout the world.

Bloggers are like rumor mills. I can not really just believe what I read in a blog until I see it verified through a trusted news organization. So many blogs ARE very partisan and it makes for a lot of blogs saying a lot of the opposite things.

Ashley Todd anyone?

Driven by anger and total disgust, I have taken off three weeks from my job to work on a new BLOG to see if I can “journal-ize” because of 4 pressing points:

(1) next Tuesday 130 million Americans are “looking for blood” and they do NOT buy the illogical argument: “We’re ALL guilty; therefore NO ONE is guilty”. I have the scoundrels to punish.

(2) The race seems to be 99% MEDIA-focused on a choice of Obama or McCain. What about the close to 90% of U.S. Congressmen who are up for re-election next week?

(3) THEY (not Bush) jammed the rationalization down our taxpayer throats that we HAD TO PAY, had to comply,had to bail them out, because their Wall Street cronies were “too big to allow to fail”. Now the biggest banks are all merging and getting even BIGGER with our taxpayer dollars! Yikes! Even General Motors wants a piece of that big pie.

(4) There is no “bathwater” and there are no “babies in the bathwater” in Washington. THIS TIME LET’S NOT RE-ELECT ANY OF THE SCOUNDRELS!” I want 100% of The House of Representatives and ~40% of The Senate to “bloody” lose their jobs!

Andrew rightly points out that it’s impossible for a print source to compete with bloggers who have almost no overhead–but one of the reasons bloggers have low overhead is that they can freely take advantage of the expensive reportage of those old-school print sources?

You would not go to a neighbor to get your tooth pulled! Journalists go to school and have experience and that helps them do a good job. Blogging is fine but it is not journalism.

Look at the blogs that blame Fannie and Freddy and minorities for the financial crisis. It simplifies a complex problem and presents bogeymen to blame. The danger is mob mentality and the untruths that spread. Clearly minorities aren’t the problem and Fannie and Freddy only had supporting roles but, mobs love scapegoats.

Trust and verify is great but, the right still has vilified MSM even though it does verify. Hanitty is thought of as a honest broker of truth by many. How is he different to Hearst?

Read party based blogs. The left is bad, the right is criminal. I imagine if Obama was losing that might change.

Blogs are terrific, but the question of trust remains.

More important: as a historian I use old newspapers to find important information; these newspapers are archived in libraries, are in microfilm and also digitized. Who preserves all the blogs and how will they be accessed in the future?

Newspapers, said Schopenhauer, are the “[clock] second hand of history” and are very necessary.

Michael S. Cullen
Berlin, Germany

Andrew Sullivan is a sublime writer who really demonstrates the value of written word. He writes so powerfully and concisely. Thank you for your reporting on this Presidential election.

As for blogging, is there a “blogging rating agency”? How do I find high quality bloggers like Andrew who write about subjects from green energy to the financial crisis, etc?

What concerns me is the lack of balance among the blogs. So many of the most popular have a very distinctive partisan slant.

I’ve just returned to America after 12 years abroad. What really strikes me is how politically polarized the general population appears to have become. And it’s reflected in the popular media, especially on television.

I also noticed how, over the past eight years, the media has become almost totally unreliable in reporting all the public needed to know about what our government’s been up to. They almost appear to have been censored (though not officially).

I found the European media to be much freer in their reporting on the activities of their governments, and the populace could use the media to make much more informed decisions than Americans are able to. We are distracted by all sorts of nonsense, often politically slanted, for the primary purpose of generating profit.

Perhaps it’s for those reasons people have turned to blogs – but an overwhelming majority of blogs are ultimately more than someone’s opinion.

I’ve had enough of opinions, of “analysis” that does nothing more than tell someone how they should think. All I want is unadulterated fact. That’s what I once relied on newspapers for.

Andrew, does Redstate give information?
The most hits points to the mob not the truth.

My wife was a journalist for a while and she has strong opinions on this topic, but I wonder if we are talking about the type of media that the news is being released on. I read my local daily paper using RSS feeds and their website. Doesn’t that bring them closer to bloggers?

How are you defining Journalism? Some letters to loved ones can be journalistic … Not all bloggers write with depth of rational or meaningful perspective. And, yet … some Bloggers do… short or long form.

Email didn’t kill literature… wounded it severely and created a subculture of long hand challenged.. but, grammar and journalists are not dead on arrival.

just my thoughts..

Traditional media are being replaced my more than just blogs. The internet makes it practical for consumers to actively seek information rather than passively receive it. I suspect the importance of this societal shift is generally underappreciated.

Source documents are readily available to everyone. Academic journals, increasingly free from printing costs, are beginning to make their content available to all. Top Universities are publishing their courses online, free for everyone. Experts and talented novices are able to distribute their work at little or no cost. Whistle-blowers and insiders have more ways to share their knowledge. Stories are created by those who know the most, rather than those who have the right jobs in the media industry.

Complementing this sudden wealth of information is a proliferation of novel information aggregators, of which blogs are only part. Wikipedia, Intrade, Digg, and YouTube all do their part to highlight interesting facts and distribute high-quality information. Online forums allow for dynamic debate in an environment in which fact-checking is nearly instantaneous.

Information will never be distributed objectively, as long as it is done by humans. It never has been. However, information consumers now have an unprecedented level of control over the information they receive. In the end, it will result in a savvier and more well-educated electorate.

In the town where I live, Westerly, Rhode Island, we have a thriving seven-day-a-week newspaper, The Westerly Sun. It is chock full of ads, but more importantly, it is the only real source for truly local news. Our statewide paper, The Providence Journal (where I once worked many years ago), recently abandoned its zoned local editions altogether.

Blogging is no doubt the wave of the journalistic future, but it will never adequately replace the small-town reporters who cover the stories and provide the information that people crave about their own communities.

I like blogs a lot, at least I know where these journalists are coming from. I find the blogs I read really are good at reinforcing my own opinion, something I don’t see much in traditional media.

I wouldn’t read anything by anybody related to The Atlantic. Isn’t that where Jack is editor?

Thank you for asking Andrew Sullivan my question…As for blogging, is there a “blogging rating agency”? How do I find high quality bloggers like Andrew who write about subjects from green energy to the financial crisis, etc?

He didn’t help me out here because I am a skeptical reader(as he said I should be.) I was looking for a way to eliminate wading in the muck to find the “gem” blogs like his. Anyone else have any suggestions or recommendations of other intelligent and thoughtful bloggers? Many thanks.

Heard most of your show. I thought it was excellent! Andrew just earned a new reader. I believe journalism has been changed forever and will continue to evolve. We will always have a need for local reporting. Please keep this type of reporting. I am inside your younger demographic. NPR / On Point do a great job. Thanks.

Correction: Andrew has repeatedly demanded that Biden release medical record — just go to his site and type “biden medical records” into the search box. Here are just a few of the numerous examples:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/where-are-joe-b.html

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/bidens-medical.html

Andrew Sullivan is one of the best. Between partisans and the so “fair and balanced” reporters, i pick intellectuals who can elevate the debate and give nuanced opinion and observations. Life is all about choices, one can chose to blog or not. At least the choice and the liberty to do so is there and access to the information is relatively free and empowering.

Sullivan made three or four posts while this show was on the air!

Well, I waited 45 minutes to put in my two cents worth and, with inflation such as it is, my two cent opinion is now a two dollar comment.

I am a “post-professional” journalist. That’s kind of like a post-graduate without a fellowship or any paying gigs.

For over ten years my work was featured in a weekly column on the arts, culture and community. I won numerous awards for excellence in writing, all of which currently grace the walls of my former editor’s office, and I cannot get a job in my beloved industry at this point.

So, my point is this: as we patiently wait for the Blogosphere to catch up with the dying print media- as a viable employment option for great writers- the best journalists in the US are literally starving to death.

What’s more, we who have begun to blog (I have for the past 6 years) regularly see our work ripped off and blatantly plagiarized by bush-league wannabe interns in the new “news trade”.

I see a very closed and extremely dishonest hierarchy here in the Blogosphere. It is much more feudalistic than the old newsrooms within which I rose to the top, like cream in a bottle of fresh milk.

Mediocrity rules, I am aware of that. Critical thinking has gone the way of the manual typewriter as well. Celebrities and bloody murder get everybody’s eyeballs a-poppin’ but top quality journalism is most certainly, perhaps finally, dead and gone forever.

Pity the poor writers, please. We were the last best chance this country had at preserving true democracy.

If your server at a restaurant or cashier at the grocery store seems overly verbose and grammatically correct, don’t get mad at her or him. Understand that this American was probably the person who wrote all those fascinating things you used to look forward to reading over your morning coffee. Be kind, please.

There but for the grace of Errata go YOU and your precious livelihood, too!

Mari McAvenia
Quincy, MA

slightly off-topic: possibly the best political satire on the web can be found at thatsrightnate.

check it out – and don’t miss the angry comments from irony-impaired readers on both the right and the left. truly hilarious!

http://thatsrightnate.com/2008/10/17/now-obama-has-his-own-flag-i-bet-the-colors-run/

No, bloggers won’t save journalism, though they well may replace it. The snarky, partisan tone of most blogs — even the best ones — leaves much to be desired. One of its most irksome features is that bloggers all insist on being characters in the story, they are all so damned impressed with themselves and their little heap of celebrity.

As for Sullivan, does anyone doubt he will be calling Obama the Antichrist within 18 months (he endorsed both Clinton and Bush, now detests both)?

Blog posting is the new vanity publishing. The best current writers such as Thomas Frank have avoided it and he is now in the Wall Street Journal writing ‘against the grain’ of the paper.

Oh and a couple of other things that a newspaper provides are proof reading, grammar checking and other elements of writing that most if not all bloggers have not fully grasped. Then there’s this one:

Please join my campaign to eliminate the tedious use of the word ‘basically.’

Here is the reasoning::

The word “basically” is an overused verbal tic which demeans and condescends the listener. It is at the same time a way for the speaker to inflate his own self-esteem by flogging and repeating words that appear to emphasize personal knowledge.

It is a fault which has become, I fear, some sort of custom or accepted colloquialism.

What is the name of the baseball statistician they mentioned that now has a political blog?

Sullivan’s comments regarding the reader’s responsibility to cull through the blogs (I believe he said “Caveat reader”), and that the reader has the responsibility to engage with the text is ironic in this age of accountability in education.

Young readers, as a not unexpected outcome of the National Reading Panel report, are assessed and therefore taught the discreet skills of reading, (phonics, phonemic awareness, vocab, fluency, and sometimes comprehension) and rarely do they get the opportunity to engage with text in a meaningful way.

Pity the reader who will graduate our schools, and be expected to sift through volumes of text AND determine which are important enough to engage with.

Another commenter wrote regarding Sullivan’s election coverage:
“Read back through the past 30 days and you will see he has been consistent in his criticism of both candidates.”

As a 6 or 7 year veteran reader of Sullivan I can honestly say this is the most one-sided he has been since the build-up of the Iraq War (which he supported). His pro-Kerry blogging in the ‘04 campaign was much more thoughtful than this worship/kill style he has taken up with Obama/McCain(HRC) ‘08.

It seems he decided to back Obama about a year ago and ever since then has put his hands on his ears and his eyes closed when it comes to potential Obama criticism (anyone, and I mean anyone…can see right through his little Biden medical request vs. his chiding, mocking, and always pessimistic tone toward McCain/Palin/HRC).

…Just look at the silly God-like pictures he uses for any of his Obama posts. It’s sad to say it, but he has crossed the line since the Palin announcement and is now a cartoon-like writer that has lost his ability to inform. I click in to his blog now more than ever just to see to what new depths he has sunk to. It’s a real shame.

I’d take a step further, and say that citizen journalists– with sophisticated management– could save journalism by stepping in as newspapers cut foreign desks, the AP alienates customers and business models fail.

Citizen journalists are already on the scene, across the globe, able to report faster and often with more personal insight than someone repurposing a wirefeed.

I created an internet fad on my blog last month–the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator. I am also a fiction writer. It strikes me that blogging is more suited to people like me than real news, which is frightening.

Blogging popularity runs on a true market economy model, which gives currency to what people want. However, the problem with market economies, as our economic crisis shows, is that what people want might not be in their best interests. People want celebrity-based gimmicks and opinions that are funny or emotional. But that doesn’t actually help us stay informed. We also want stuff for free. Blogging helps that especially because of the easy replicability of blogging–cut and paste, or better yet, feed.

This will not lead to real in-the-field reporting, fact checking, accountability, etc. I’m worried that if news goes all blog, it will just be the Daily Show (humor) v. Fox News (outrage) models of journalism. That’s easy to make, cheap, and palatable.

Dirlboy: Nate Silver:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com is quite a good electoral college tracker but just like the rest, it’s a blog and while he aggregates polls, both national and state, he attempts to take the bias out of them with his own secret sauce. That makes it subjective even though it seems to be more objective.

I happen to agree with what he’s doing and he does make it clear, but some won’t.

All news sources are subjective, blogs and The NewsHour and everything in between. There are some traditional news sources that cross the line (FOX) and there are some blogs that do less of it (fivethirtyeight).

Like Andrew said, the wisdom of crowds is worth paying attention to and it’s up to each of us to decide which information we want to look at and which we think don’t. This has always been although in the days of Cronkite it was less apparent.

I have hundreds of cable channels but I only watch a few and I’ve got the entire web of sites with information on them and I only check about 10 daily.

No one has brought up RSS and newsreaders in this discussion. I can’t live without NetNewsWire, news reader aggregators are the best way to track this stuff, including this site.

Mr. Sullivan has NOT been “consistent” in demanding medical records for Sen. Obama, but he has been with Gov. Palin. If you doubt this, he did it again just yesterday – twice!

TO Steve, let’s get the facts straight, shall we? Both Sen. Biden and Sen. McCain have already released their medical records, which is why I focused on the manner in which Mr. Sullivan is pursuing Gov. Palin’s and thoroughly uninterested in Sen. Obama’s.

Remember, the headline for yesterday’s show had to do with whether bloggers can “save” journalism. So, let’s be clear: what Mr. Sullivan has been up to in this case is not journalism. If he wants to carry the flag for a candidate, that’s fine – at worst this would be a kind of bias. But the tactics he’s using – posting paternity rumor and innuendo based on no evidence – in order to achieve the political outcome he desires are rank.

A little off topic – does anyone remember the caller who mentioned an article in Avionics or Aviation magazine about a West Coast company which has developed synthetic petroleum from sea water? I’m interested in finding out more about this, but can remember the specific magazine he referenced.

I believe he said the Aviation Magazine.

[...] Non-sports: Can bloggers save journalism? {On Point Radio.} Get to know Worrier. {Heave [...]

[...] NPR program On Point spent an hour this morning trying to decide: “Can Bloggers Save Journalism?” Most of it was fairly on point (heh) but it quickly became apparent that a more apt name for [...]

Excellent topic.

As I have come to suspect, it appears the only way I can get a right of reply after being defamed across the British press over a relationship I had with one of the richest men in England, Bruno Schroder, is to start my own blog and say what I have to say.

In many of the articles, including some that were syndicated to the US, I have been maliciously libeled. None of the press, broadsheets and tabloids alike, would publish a correction and apology, never sufficient in any event, unless I filed a lawsuit.

It is just unbelievable from an American point of view. My respect for the British press has plummeted. What happened to a fair and balanced press?

I am grateful to Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times for pointing out in a column over the summer, just how inaccurate most of the British press is.

It is unfair in this day and age, when The European Court of Human Rights has declared that a right to a reputation is a human right, that I have to go through stressful legal action to resolve this.

So, after listening to your show, it appears starting a blog is the most efficient and least expensive way for me to counter the bias and unfairness of the British press that refuses to give me a right of reply. At least it will be picked up by Google.

Now I better understand why there was an American Revolution!

At the end of the program Andrew Sullivan was asked if
there were any blog rating agency. Andrew commented readers should rate the blogs themselves.

I would agree there are few if any rating agency, but I feel that one would be of great service. The Do Good Gauge is an abstract to develop a democratic method for measuring the worth of a journalist argument. The abstract is published at http://www.dogoodgauge.org.

[...] “Can Bloggers Save Journalism?” (check out the [...]

True bloggers can save and help journalism. Rumor bloggers, and other such trash may hinder it though.

Bloggers are why Journalism sucks now. Anytime I can predict the next news cycle by just looking at what’s big on the forums and blogs, journalism is in a heap of trouble. Gone are correspondents, investigations, and experts. In are people sitting in their houses verifying information with google and wikipedia.

As long as alternative media is easily accessible and people still have confirmation bias, journalism will never be what it once was.

After having this debate with myself for the last year – books vs. blogs – I have to admit, Mr. Sullivan’s article in the Atlantic and his interview here on NPR had a profound impact on me. His notion of blogging as “writing outloud” sparked my own blog. Thank you, thank you Andrew Sullivan.

[...] Roundtable discussion on NPR. [...]

As far as I can see, bloggers have the right idea. It is true that some are divided in partisanship, but in this point in time, viewers and users now get to choose what they watch. So if a blogger stays in one direction, politically speaking, then it is the users’ choice to continue reading/listening. Otherwise, there are plenty of other blog sites that cater to each individual personality.

I bought a subscription to the Atlantic because I know that if Andrew and Marc don’t sell subscriptions, their days are numbered. I’ll probably never read it because I don’t have the time at home and doubt I could pull it off at work. This said, I value the online product enough to pay for the brick and mortar. Most people I imagine will take the free ride even though they will be worse off when Http 404 “Page not Found” greets them one fine morning.

The papers and magazines seem to represent a free rider problem. Like the classic lighthouse or even a bridge or a road, a lot of us benefit if the NY Times or Atlantic continue to employ smart people to inform us, whether through their site or links to their from places like Google News. But I can’t keep either afloat on my own.

The solution historically is a tax on all of us to provide the bridge: we all will benefit and no one can get the benefits without the costs.

In this case, perhaps the tax should be applied to the ISPs in proportion to their market share – cable and phone companies in effect are obtaining the benefit from us stealing Andrew’s wit (especially the case when we run ad blockers!). They therefore should pay the sites/institutions who provide us the goodies.

While I have been called a Marxist, and still deny it, I think it all comes down to dineros.

Robbins stated:

“Bloggers are not journalists, they are too partisan and Andrew Sullivan is more partisan than most.”

Last I checked there was a rather inherent media bias and journalist were not immune. People are people, bloggers and journalist alike have thoughts. Bias will show through either way, this is not a legitimate argument against blogging as journalism.

– Scott

[...] blogging save journalism? A former NPR ombudsman thinks it can do more than that. Others maintain hell, no. It’s an [...]