Decision ‘08

No Fan, He

Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal is less than enamored of blogs:

The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.

More success is met in purveying opinion and comment. Some critics reproach the blogs for the coarsening and increasing volatility of political life. Blogs, they say, tend to disinhibit. Maybe so. But politics weren’t much rarefied when Andrew Jackson was president, either. The larger problem with blogs, it seems to me, is quality. Most of them are pretty awful. Many, even some with large followings, are downright appalling.

Every conceivable belief is on the scene, but the collective prose, by and large, is homogeneous: A tone of careless informality prevails; posts oscillate between the uselessly brief and the uselessly logorrheic; complexity and complication are eschewed; the humor is cringe-making, with irony present only in its conspicuous absence; arguments are solipsistic; writers traffic more in pronouncement than persuasion . . .

Is that all? Jeez, that’s a pretty devastating bill of indictment (though much, if not most of it, is true). Rago continues:

Because political blogs are predictable, they are excruciatingly boring. More acutely, they promote intellectual disingenuousness, with every constituency hostage to its assumptions and the party line. Thus the right-leaning blogs exhaustively pursue second-order distractions–John Kerry always providing useful material–while leaving underexamined more fundamental issues, say, Iraq. Conservatives have long taken it as self-evident that the press unfavorably distorts the war, which may be the case; but today that country is a vastation, and the unified field theory of media bias has not been altered one jot.

Leftward fatuities too are easily found: The fatuity matters more than the politics. If the blogs have enthusiastically endorsed Joseph Conrad’s judgment of newspapering–”written by fools to be read by imbeciles”–they have also demonstrated a remarkable ecumenicalism in filling out that same role themselves.

Are most blogs awful? Indeed, they are. So is most of what passes for entertainment on, say, television. But the price is right, and there are some jewels among the dreck.

Do we spend time on minutiae, such as John Kerry? Indeed, we do (and I’m going to keep doing so, by God! - but you know, the guy was the Democratic nominee for President just two short years ago). But we DON’T shortchange Iraq; indeed, the fact that Rago could make such an assertion makes me wonder just WHICH blogs he is frequenting. I dare say even on this humble blog I’ve spilt hundreds of thousands of words on Iraq. Was all of it a valuable contribution? No, not even most of it. But over time, I’ve carved out real positions, and engaged in dialogue with my readers and commenters, and both been persuaded and persuaded some myself.

So, in the spirit of Christmas, I say to you, Mr. Rago: Bah! Humbug!…

8 Responses to “No Fan, He”

1 Gwedd Says:
December 20th, 2006 at 8:00 am
Mark,

It is a well known fact amongst zoologists that animals, in general, only attack when they feel threatened. Seems to me the good editorialist must be weary of the “death by a thousand small cuts” he and his ilk are suffering.

Well, they deserve it. For more than 50 years, the MSM has deemed itself above criticism, above reproach. Suddenly, they find the rules have changed and there is a new player in the game. Too bad. Adapt or die.

To my own mind (whatever is left of it these days. sigh.) the current situation the MSM finds itself in is naught but a self-inflicted wound. They sit insulated from society and pompously pontificate from their pulpit about all manner of things. They claim to voraciously fact check items, and yet a cursory examination of any section of any paper will likely reveal sloppy and unattributed work.

The grey whore claims to be the “paper of reknown” and yet fails to condemn the thuggish/fascist behaviour of journalism students at Columbia. The NYT claims to know what is best policy for Iraq, and yet depends upon the AP for most of it’s copy, with the AP taking it’s cue for stories from stringers who may *(and in some cases are) propagandist shills for the terrorists we are fighting. The AP’s own reporters rarely, if ever, venture into the field in Iraq, preferring the comfort of a hotel bar to conduct their research and interviews. Some integrity indeed!

I have more faith these days in Blogs than in ANY of the MSM, as I have little faith in any sort of objectivity from the latter. They have failed their own audience, and their own mission, and the resulting decline in subscriptions and the turn towards electronic media is a direct result of that. Hence this screed from Mr. Rago.

Respects,
2 too many steves Says:
December 20th, 2006 at 10:39 am
I, for one, didn’t realize that a choice had to be made: journalism or blogs. Here I was dancing along thinking both serve a useful purpose. Shite, how will I ever choose?!?

As you say Mark, there are plenty of bad blogs, bad TV, bad sports and, as you didn’t say, bad news reporting or journalists/news outlets. I read a report in yesterday’s Boston Globe about carbon emissions growth in the Northeast (New England and eastern Canada). It cited a recent study by a group that was identified, late in the article, as an environmental advocacy group. Their report was the only perspective given, no interviews with scientists (to confirm or rebut), no reports contradicting, nothing. Following my reading of that article I can only describe myself as partially informed on this issue. That, is crap journalism.

Personally, I’m happy to sift through the chaff to get to the wheat. I’ve learned over time which news outlets are reliable in getting the facts correct. I’ve also got a list of blogs that I can trust.

Why do the MSM keep pushing us to make a choice? I suspect, as Comrade Gwedd says, that there is some truth to the idea that they feel threatened.
3 Gun Toting Liberal ™ » Blog Archive » Wall Street Journal Editor: Most blogs, even the popular ones are awful and boring Says:
December 20th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
[…] Other blogger reactions: QandO; The Moderate Voice; PoliBlog; Ace Of Spades HQ; Polimom Says; Blue Crab Boulevard; Decision ‘08; The Astute Bloggers; Daily Pundit; Beltway Blogroll […]
4 Blue Crab Boulevard » The Contempt Of Fools Says:
December 20th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
[…] UPDATE: Others suitably impressed with Mr. Rago: QandO, Ace of Spades, Gun Toting Liberal, News Busters, Joe's Dartblog, PoliBlog, EU Referendum, Protein Wisdom, Ed Driscoll, The Moderate Voice, Decision '08, Fraters Libertas, Daily Pundit, Polimom Says, Beltway Blogroll, Balloon Juice, snapped shot, BizzyBlog, Seeing the Forest, The Astute Bloggers, Junk Yard Blog, Penraker, […]
5 You Are An Imbicile And I Am A Fool - Liberal Values - Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought Says:
December 20th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
[…] QandO, Ace of Spades HQ, Booman Tribune, MyDD, Riehl World View, Roger L. Simon, Joe’s Dartblog, NewsBusters.org, Ed Driscoll.com, Decision ‘08, Shakespeare’s Sister, EU Referendum, Gun Toting Liberal ™, PoliBlog ™, Fraters Libertas, protein wisdom, Polimom Says, The Moderate Voice, Beltway Blogroll, Daily Pundit, Balloon Juice, Seeing the Forest, snapped shot, BizzyBlog, Confederate Yankee, Blue Crab Boulevard and THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, alicublog Written by Ron ChusidLast 5 posts by Ron ChusidThe Futility of Abstience Based Education - December 20th, 2006Robot Rights - December 20th, 2006Harry Reid’s Damage Control - December 19th, 2006Barack Hussein Obama and the Conservative Blogosphere - December 19th, 2006The Libertarian Party Must Die - December 19th, 2006 […]
6 Decision ‘08 » Blog Archive » The Problem With Monolithic Thinking Says:
December 20th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
[…] Rich Lowry suffers from the flip side of the delusion of Joseph Rago: First Lady Laura Bush spoke for many conservatives when she excoriated the media’s coverage of Iraq the other day. She complained that “the drumbeat in the country from the media … is discouraging,” and said “there are a lot of good things happening that aren’t covered.” […]
7 crawlinkingsnake Says:
December 20th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
The media in hands of the people! In a democracy! Horrific! Im going to go read bbc.com.
8 Sister Toldjah Says:
December 20th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
On criticism of the media and blogs

There’s a lot of talk on both sides of the aisle today about Wall Street Journal assistant editorial features editor Joseph Rago’s piece on the demise of the media and rise of the blogosphere and National Review editor Rich Lowry’s su…