Amazon.com Widgets

As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."

Monday, January 31, 2005

The No-Facts Zone

I think pretty much everybody who blogs has an overstated belief in their own self-importance (except for me, of course). But this has been far more pronounced on the right side of the aisle, the self-proclaimed "defenders of the truth" who vanquish Big Media with a click of the mouse. 'Cept, you know, when THEY are fact-checked themselves, it, um, doesn't matter:

As a graduate student in public affairs at the University of Minnesota, I recently heard an in-class presentation by John Hinderaker, who, with partner Scott Johnson, runs the Powerline blog. Powerline played a role in breaking the Rathergate affair and was recently named "Blog of the Year" by Time magazine.
Prior to Hinderaker's presentation, the week before the November elections, I visited the Powerline site. To my surprise an Oct. 27 post covered alleged voter fraud in Racine, Wis., my hometown. The charges involved the registering of illegal aliens to vote. The story seemed outrageous, so I made a few phone calls to check it out.

What I discovered was troubling. There was no factual basis for the voter fraud allegations. Powerline posted the story based on the word of a single individual employed by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). This was hearsay at best, posted as "news" at a time when voter registration efforts by the Democrats and 527 groups were coming under fire by conservatives.

At class I asked Hinderaker if posts to Powerline were fact-checked. He was dismissive of the question, so I asked if he was aware that the Racine voter fraud story was inaccurate. He stated that he was not, slapped his hands together and stated that the blogosphere was all about speed and therefore did not allow for fact-checking. Mr. Hinderaker went on to say, "Our readers let us know when we get it wrong."


No, fuckstick, the blogosphere is NOT all about speed if you end up misleading your readers (or outright lying) because of it. In fact, this is exactly what people like Powerline accused CBS of: rushing to the story for partisan purposes. So if you're COMMITTED to doing so, um, by your very standard, you're no better.

I believe it was Digby or somebody who laughed at this notion that rightblogotopia has that they are somehow faster and more accurate than the "MSM". I don't see any of them reporting from the front lines, or am I wrong? Commenting on what you read in the paper or online is noble (hell, it's what I'm doing right now), but it is in no way a substitute for actual journalism. In fact it depends on actual journalism for its survival; otherwise, what would it report? I guess the answer is, the hearsay of single individuals employed by the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

With the possible exception of the telegraph and Movietone newsreels, no new media has spelled the end of old media. They adapt and change, or just keep steamrolling along. 25 years into the cable news era, the nightly news on ABC, CBS, and NBC still get higher ratings. The radio hasn't gone anywhere.

In other words, get a life, dudes, we're not that damn important. And we're really not important if we decide that we'll NEVER correct ourselves or bother to check our sources.

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