The blogging two-step

Also, I don’t see Reynolds and other non-left bloggers as wanting to “devour the New York Times whole.” I think they want mainstream media organizations to change in two ways:

1. Stop pretending that journalism is a hallowed profession requiring as much skill and training as medicine or law, and therefore deserving of guild protections along the lines of apparently serious proposals that blogs and other informal media ought to be regulated in ways that “traditional” media are not;

2. Live up to their own stated standards better; blogs provide this sort of accountability in ways that cannot be emulated by purely internal mechanisms. The forged-memo debacle at CBS shows that (and is still showing that, given the unexplained delays in the final report).

While I don’t doubt that people in the right-wing blogosphere may have bloviated about replacing the NYT or entirely displacing the mainstream media, I think you are misrepresenting the agenda at work.

asg ummm … no. A couple of minutes surfing revealed this “Roger Simon”:http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2004/10/prediction.php post predicting that the blogosphere would make mainstream media pay “more than they could imagine” for a Kerry victory, this Belmont Club “claim”:http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2004/12/scientists-on-things-scientific.html that the fortress of the mainstream media will collapse under the artillery-fire of the blogosphere, Glenn Reynolds’ “claim”:http://instapundit.com/archives/017254.php that the Fourth Estate is “unravelling before our very eyes”, his “enthusiastic assent”:http://instapundit.com/archives/019026.php to Peggy Noonan’s argument that the ‘pajama-clad yeomen of America had taken the mainstream media down, and Hugh Hewitt’s “unified theory”:http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/087nhhbq.asp of ‘How 2004 brought doom to legacy media.’ All deeply squirrelly of course – but all claiming in different ways that the bloggers will, and should, take over the role of the MSM. I’m sure that I could find many more if I spent another 10 minutes googling. If these people don’t want the NYT to be devoured whole, and believe that it will be, why are they saying what they are saying? And why shouldn’t they be held to the standards that they demand from others?

The right-wing blogosphere has no interest in a media that lives up to objective standards of journalism. They want a media that conforms to their world-view. Why else would the CBS forged memos be the epitome of journalistic failure, and not the New York Times’ credulous reporting of Iraqi WMDs? It’s not about objectivity for these people — it’s about power.

Provide one example where a blogger, busted for a factual error, came back with “hey, what do you want? I’m just a blogger.”
Gladly. Back in the heady “early days” of the blogosphere (that would be 2002 for you neophytes), the Bard of Knoxville, citing a specious study, breathlessly exclaimed that Sweden (i.e. socialist hell) was poorer than Mississippi. When a number of lefty bloggers “fact checked his ass,” (or “fisking” as it was annoyingly referred to back then), Instaman meekly responded, and I quote:
“It’s a frickin’ blog, after all. If you don’t like the free ice cream, fine.”
Indeed.

If these people don’t want the NYT to be devoured whole, and believe that it will be, why are they saying what they are saying?

I guess I am not understanding what you mean by “devoured whole.” If you mean a scenario wherein the Times goes bankrupt and shuts down due to its being wholly replaced by internet media, then I think your inferring that from any of the passages you link is just a tad stretched.

But it’s clear that blogs have provided some measure of accountability that was not present before. I think that is what the people you link are talking about (see e.g. the last paragraph of the Hewitt piece you link) and that is why they are saying what they are saying. Specifically they are saying that the mainstream media has lost credibility and influence due to its hypocrisy about standards, and it is the blogosphere which exposed that hypocrisy.

And why shouldn’t they be held to the standards that they demand from others?

The same reason we don’t expect personal injury attorneys to have attended medical school, or Ralph Nader to have attended engineering school, etc. The only reason the blogosphere demands that the mainstream media adhere to a certain set of standards is because those are the standards the mainstream media has set for itself. (The lawyers example is a bad one, now that I think of it, because of course in the U.S. lawyers have very little compunction about setting standards for others while being very lax about policing themselves. But you get my point.)

Here’s one that involved CT. After barking that Cruz Bustamante was a racist and a homophobe based on an erroneous web link, Glenn blamed the error on cough syrup. He then went on to say:

[H]ere’s a post by David Neiwert defending Bustamante, just in case you’re interested. Flatteringly, he seems to think that I’m more influential than Fox News, though that in itself may undercut his credibility.

YET MORE: Now Neiwert is mad at me for “knocking his credibility.” Sheesh. I just thought it was funny that he was putting me in the context of Big Media.

asg has already made what seems to be the crucial point – that even the most triumphalist of mainstream righty blogs only seek to improve the MSM (and not replace it).

People should also be prepared to distinguish clear errors of fact (which Instapundit et. al. are generally more ready to admit than the MSM) from issues that involve some kind of judgment call (eg. how well things are going in Iraq).

I’m trying to understand how Henry’s argument is supposed to apply to the rightwing blogosphere but not the lefty blogs. If a liberal blog assails FoxNews, is it then “rich” for them to “accuse the mainstream media of ideological bias and expect to get taken seriously”?

asg-
1. Stop pretending that journalism is a hallowed profession requiring as much skill and training as medicine or law, and therefore deserving of guild protections along the lines of…
Whatever hallow once clung to medicine and the law in the US they’ve long since become as tarnished as the film or insurance industries. What medicine especially had, and still has in the rank and file below the bureaucratic suck, is dedication. There were and still are people whose professional lives are dedicated to healing, and the same corruption that’s tarnished medicine as a profession has hampered their ability to live out that dedication. They need protection from the greed that sees the willingness of medical consumers to pay any price as fair game.
Journalists have a parallel history in many ways. And the dedication that’s so admirable in medical professionals is what makes journalistic integirty a mark of bravery.
The law is too thick a subject for this post.

2. Live up to their own stated standards better; blogs provide this sort of accountability in ways that cannot be emulated by purely internal mechanisms. The forged-memo debacle at CBS shows that…
Blogs are atomized, pixels rather than a screen. It increases the likelihood of the truth existing somewhere online, though it substantially decreases easy access to full-system, vetted news. Our idea of what that is was shaped by the networks early on, and since. The pyramid hierarchy of authority in the networks now means apex-oriented values, moral and professional.
In a conflict the big orifices are going to protect the interests of the decision-makers.
In an atomized system that won’t happen.
It’s laughable that Rather’s “Kenneth-what’s-the-frequency”-redux is pointed to as journalistic standards in action, while CNN and the old-guard networks and Murdoch’s lickspittle Fox spray a mist of inane nonsense night and day.
It’s not that people can trust corporate news to give them pertinent truth, it’s that they can trust corporate news to sacrifice pertinent truth for self-interest every time. This is incredibly comforting to the majority of consumers now, because it harmonizes with their own clamorous greed; albeit not so comforting to the rest of us.

Just to play devil’s advocate (while not defending anybody whose faults could be used against me):

The argument in favor of the blogosphere over the mainstream media is not that any given blogger is smarter or better informed than any given reporter. (Though that’s often true in the specific.) Rather, it’s that on any given subject, the blogosphere is better at locating the relevant expert and bringing him/her to public attention. If there are competing claims, each side will produce its own experts and everybody can decide for themselves. Haven’t you all noticed that whenever some print or TV journalist examines a subject about which you happen to know a lot, they almost invariably get it wrong?

That’s just accuracy, which is separate and apart from blogs’ relative advantages in other areas.

So, the fact that Glenn casually associates Bustamante with some of the most vile hate speech in the country, and then tries to joke his way out of the mistake is a “minor error?” The fact that he (a man who jokes that “celebrate diversity” means choice among handguns) stands by the racist label in the face of all evidence is proof of his intellectual integrity?

I guess we really are in a new paradigm.

I don’t understand why this is even worthy of debate. The ideological blogs are awash with half-truths, pseudo-stories, and one-sided coverage. The blogsphere is also quite good at the production of truth through a fog of recursive hypertext links often culminating in mis-readings of mainstream media accounts or the selective citing of articles of dubious pedigree.

Looking at the responses by Reynolds, the obvious analogy would be a newspaper that regularly published errors and, rather than retracting them, printed brief letters from those who objected.

His response to Max Sawicky would make sense if his blog were simply a list of links to interesting stuff, without any editorial content. That’s pretty much how blogs started out, and it’s a convenient position to retreat to when you’re caught out in an obvious error.

Did we ever get a proper retraction out of Reynolds over the Kerry adultery story? Just asking.

Laura: I just heard the animal tsunami angle on Radio 4 and it sounded somewhat interesting. Apparently there was not a single animal killed in a Sri Lankan nature reserve near the coast because they all heard the rumblings of the earthquake and ran for high ground. It’s been a quite controversial point among people in the field whether or not animals can hear earthquakes coming and the fact that they apparently can is, while obviously not of the same scale of story as the human tragedy, interesting.

A sorry argument, because the best blogs right and left are written by thoughtful people who are clever enough to know they are not trying to replace the MSM.

Many MSM people frame what should be reportage in terms of good/bad by whatever trendy values are in that organisation. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a great example, but measurement shows that privately owned networks are as bad or worse.

When critics from the Left attack the media for pro-establishment bias, it is taken to show that the MSM are fair; in fact they are just another interest group whose job is to make money from misery. Getting social brownie points from trying to ‘change the world’ is misusing their power.

Peopel with opinions can report fairly; they just need to separate their observations from the editorialising.

At the risk of sounding reasonable, I’d like to propose that we stop treating “bloggers” and “mainstream media” as uniform, lockstep monoliths. There are, indeed, examples of what is known as “blogger triumphalism” in the blogosphere–bloggers who trumpet, and possibly even believe, the claim that in the future, the mainstream media will disappear, to be entirely replaced by bloggers. There are also lots of bloggers–myself included–who dismiss such talk as nonsense.

Similarly, there are plently of mainstream journalists who have embraced–even started–blogs, and welcome the extra channel of information and feedback they provide. And there are journalists who seem to have come completely unhinged at the prospect of blogger criticism/competition, muttering darkly about fully funded partisan conspiracies, false propaganda, and even the possible need for government regulation. (For example, check out the astonishing scaremongering in this CBS News rant in the aftermath of “memogate”.)

I don’t know if the Power Line bloggers have ever embraced blogger triumphalism, as opposed to the role of bloggers as fact-checkers and media critics. I don’t myself recall ever having seen them brag about their plans to replace the mainstream media, and it’s certainly not a recurring theme in their writing. But the hysterical ranting of the mainstream journalist they’re criticizing–Nick Coleman–sure makes him look like he inhabits the blog-addled end of the mainstream media spectrum. Most of his column has nothing to do with the blogger triumphalism/blogger modesty contradiction you’re complaining about, and everything to do with the alleged evils of the Power Line bloggers–their wealth, their right-wing partisanship, their unwillingness to act as a voice for “the downtrodden”. Nowhere–as you concede–does he address Power Line’s legitimate-sounding complaints about him. Why you’d use his dispute with Power Line as a jumping-off point to complain about blogger triumphalism, rather than about mainstream media hypersensitivity, is beyond me.

The main problem with Henry’s argument is that pretty well everything in it about journalism is just wrong. I am a journalist and one with many years of experience at the top level. Sure, we used to have standards. Yes, we used to be scrupulous. Maybe we used to have intellectual honesty, although intellectuals have never cut any ice in newsrooms.

But the notion of standards and scruples at newspapers now is a matter of lip service and hypocrisy. Newspapers exist to make money, and where in the past their own journalists had sufficient clout and integrity to keep them honest, the bean counters have long since swept them aside . as it becomes harder and harder to beat the bottom line.

Add to this the emasculation of editors, the dumbing down of education and the worldwide juniorisation of newsrooms (cheap journalists who never heard of standards replacing expensive ones with both talent and
integrity) and you have a recipe for decay.
The reason blogs are getting up MSM’s nose is precisely because they are able, in chain and in concert, to challenge every unchecked assertion or ill-judged opinion presented as fact.

Blogs, in general (the serious kind) are often run by journalists frustrated at the MSM morass their work has fallen into. No one expects b logs to replace big media. That would obviously be completely impractical, since newspapers or TV present a shaped package of digestible size — you’d have to spend a lot of time reading blogs to glean a tenth of that much hard news.

What blogs threaten is the MSM’s assumed moral superiority, ownership of truth (as if) and other sanctified notions. The reaction of idiots like Coleman (egotistical idiots abound at newspapers) is on the lines of “Who do they fink they are?” They are your worst nightmare Nick. readers with a voice of their own.

Henry, the word “slavering”here is a bit silly and melodramatic, don’t you think? or is it a joke?

Patterico: Yuval slanders Glenn Reynolds by falsely attributing a quote to him that he never uttered. Next time, Yuval, feel obligated to provide the link.

As has been pointed out above, Yuval provided a link to Maxspeak, where Reynolds’ quote is in the comments. Next time, Patterico…

I concur with libertarian girl.

Bloggers may never replace the main stream media, but they do serve as a way of keeping them honest. And they are beginning to put the op/ed community in its place, which is long in coming.

As to keeping the blogosphere honest – bloggers do that as well. If a blogger is dishonest or makes mistakes they are called on it by a “thousand” editors, not just one. And if they don’t correct their lies/mistakes they are either ignored or declared “amusing, but irrelevant.”

Yuval badly misrepresents the “free ice cream” remark, which though accurate referred specifically to links that might upset people, not casual misstatements of fact.

Careful, Patterico. How will you maintain your rep as a “slavering right wing hack” by correcting yourself, conceding points, and having a cvilized debate? There goes your street cred.

This thread is pretty funny. The New York Times has blown any number of big stories over the past ten years: Wen Ho Lee, Whitewater, Iraqi WMDs. None of those count, though, because “bias” only means “left-wing bias”, a charge whose evidence begins and ends with Dan Rather.

“When the Belmont Club says that “instant reporters” mean that

The last bastion of the media has now witnessed the birth of a kind of informational artillery, which while still too weak to overthrow its existing walls, must surely in time grow to such a strength as to render their fortress untenable.

they’re not talking about factchecking the media’s asses, are they.”

You either don’t read Wretchard very often, or you are deliberately distorting his views. The idea he is talking about destroying is the idea that the mainstream media provides unbiased facts and that it does not express its own point of view. How do you puncture those ideas? By fact-checking and revealing facts that the media does not wish to share.

Looking at the responses by Reynolds, the obvious analogy would be a newspaper that regularly published errors and, rather than retracting them, printed brief letters from those who objected.

Umm, that is pretty much what newspapers do. Ever read the corrections section of the NYT? It has little games about transposed letters in the spelling of someone’s name, it rarely corrects the factual misrepresentations that take place every day. Its headline policy is especially egregious. For a recent example I like the Asymmetrical Information example of “Ohio recount gives a smaller margin to Bush”. The kind of bias which doesn’t realize that the proper headline would be at the very minimum “No Statistically Significant Change after Recount” if not “Nader’s insinuation of masssive voter fraud almost certainly wrong” doesn’t get corrected in correction pages.

Yuval’s argument just collapsed. Earlier, he attacked Glenn Reynolds — but when challenged on the specifics, Yuval was forced to admit that Reynolds’s postings are “brilliant” and “effective.” Yuval can’t seem to keep his story straight.

(Yuval: notice that, by your logic, I couldn’t have misrepresented your comments in the previous paragraph. After all, I was just quoting you.)

To be serious for a moment: Yuval, you claimed that Reynolds was “busted for a factual error” when he simply linked to something. That’s quite an overstatement. To put my complaint in sober-minded left-wing academic lingo, I guess you must be one of those slavering left-wing hacks.

Hmmm….seems like a tsunami in a teacup. Henry just learned from Norm Coleman (rather quickly, too) that a fabulist, fatuous and hyperbolic attack on any non-left blogger will generate traffic. Fame. Fortune. Inflate self-importance. Heck, I understand the phenomenon…I was a lowly assistant professor once myself. A little saber-rattling against the right never hurts tenure prospects! I had to fake a bit of the old neo-bashing for my promotion–immediately followed, of course, by my resurrection as right-wing warrior. Move on folks, nothing to see here. Youngster faculty trying to make Time’s listings next year.

Calling Bloggers hypocritical because they demand the MSM to report in an unbiased manner is just foolish. Bloggers for the most part are just editorialists. They provide conjecture on news with a biased eye, and they admit that. The MSM on the other hand claims objectivity, but doesn’t provide it. If you look at any side of the MSM you can see that, whether its CBS or Fox. No blogger is asking for the editors or columnists to be objective. Just the journalists.

AS to being responsible, I have looked at all of the bloggers mentioned in this piece and I note that they do something very well. They ask, if not demand, that the reader go to the linked news/column/editorial and read it for themselves. I have never seen an MSM source link to another media source and demand that the consumer fact check them.

In the end, this all appears to be a tempest in a tea cup. If you don’t like bloggers, that’s fine, Lots of them don’t like you. It doesn’t mean that they are irresponsible of hypocritical. Leveraging that type of argument seems a bit petty, especially when you’re still only blaming the pundits for stating their beliefs not providing objective “facts.”

I disagree with your statement that “it’s a bit rich for slavering right wing hacks to accuse the mainstream media of ideological bias and expect to get taken seriously”.

This is illogical on its face.

Many political blogs, political magazines, political talk shows, etc. are *subjective* (opinionated) by their very nature.

Mainstream media, on the other hand, have always assured us that they are *objective* (presenting ‘just the facts, ma’am’).

There’s absolutely nothing inconsistent with folks on the opinion side of the equation needling those on the fact side when they let ideology get in the way of objectivity.

The sloppiness of Henry’s thinking is revealed by reading the links he provides to Instapundit, which dicuss ways in which the blogosphere criticzed/revealed MSM errors and bias but do not claim that the MSM will be replaced by blogs. Of course, Henry hides behind the evasive “different impression” (circum)locution, even as he accuses others of evasion.

I would suggest that anyone wanting to understand media bias spend some time at Rhetorica and testing his Critical Meter. You’ll find that Reynolds is familiar with both this and Rosen’s explanation of media bias.

However, slavishly attacking different ideological blogs with the same unintelligent rhetoric as the bias hunting ranters sure does get play, doesn’t it?

JRK: you overestimate the transparency of the internet. Hiding behind the fear of having your email “flooded” because you post your real name (without an email address) on an ad hominem attack on a fellow scholar on an academic-oriented blog is the worst excuse I’ve ever heard. Either that or you don’t understand the nature of this site.

I clearly underestimate the bias at the departments of the institution at which I spent my college years. Still wonder what department “pretending to be a leftist” would help you get tenure in….

I, for example, post anonymously because I *don’t* have tenure. :-)

Well, that settles that! Scorseby (no google university affiliation, quelle surprise!) is posting anonymously! Kettle? Pot? But I’m not ‘fearful’–your mis-characterization (one of the first flaws of irrational argumentation) of my post, imputing fear where I said nothing of the kind, devolves into the even more egregious accusation of ad hominem attack (I’m starting to think conservatives have a point about nutty leftists and their paranoia) on the original foolish poster. He may be stupid, that’s a given reading his post, but my pointing it out is not an ad hominem attack. Get a dictionary…or an education. Methinks you’re hiding behind the nom de guerre of Lee Scorseby not to help your tenure bid (is ANY leftist ever turned down?) but to disguise your idiocy.

I realize I’m talking to the proverbial brick wall here, so I’ll lay out my argument in chewy, bite-sized morsels so that the spittle-flecked Glennonites, chief among them patterico, can understand.
1. Reynolds claims on his blog that

I made three points: (1) Sweden collaborated with the Nazis in World War Two, and with various unsavory types afterward; (2) Sweden has more crime than America; and (3) Sweden is poorer than Mississippi.

In support of his argument, he links to a study by a Swedish trade group, along with approving comments from other bloggers.
2. Max Sawicky debunks Reynolds’ argument about the Sweden/Mississippi comparison with all thar them fancy facts and statistics, which apparently is way beyond patterico and the other Glennonites’ comprehension.
3. In the comments section, Reynolds does not admit that the arguments he specifically endorsed have been disproved. Rather, he provides some examples of his “characteristically evasive” M.O. First, he lamely replies that “you can criticize my links if you want,” even though Reynolds explicitly endorses these arguments (ergo my “hiding under the skirt of the bloggers you link to” comment above).
4. Reynolds then offers a laughable variant on the “we report, you decide” motto, by pointing out that he’s linked to “people who’ve criticized these points,” as if this faux-“fair and balanced” approach insulates him from criticism.
5. Reynolds then tosses in an aside about “antigravity research” that elicited angry responses. He then utters the “money” quote, which, by any rational measure, is intended to buttress his overall (dissembling) argument, which is that he does not endorse, nor is he responsible for, what he links to.
6. Max points out the absurdity of Reynolds’ defense, noting

it’s one thing to offer a link and say it’s worth considering, but another to provide it as evidence for repeated assertions of your own

7. To patterico and the vein-popping Glennonites, the last sentence, which I originally highlighted, has nothing to do with his overall argument, and is tethered solely to his aside about anti-gravity research. However, to any rational observer, the last sentence reflects his evasive and dissembling non-denial, after his argument has just been demolished.
8. Therefore, because this quote is magically disembodied from his main argument, I am somehow not only taking his words out of context, but slandering him as well.

Er, no. Better luck next time.

And I couldn’t let this go by:

you claimed that Reynolds was “busted for a factual error” when he simply linked to something.

Really? Then why does Reynolds, in his post, start off by writing “I made three points.” That’s more than just “simply link[ing] to something.” You might even say (call me crazy) that he’s using these links in support of his argument (as Max astutely points out “it’s one thing to offer a link and say it’s worth considering, but another to provide it as evidence for repeated assertions of your own.”) When said links supporting his argument (notice a pattern here?) are debunked, Reynolds lamely responds that “you can criticize my links if you want” and concludes by whining “It’s a frickin’ blog, after all. If you don’t like the free ice cream, fine.” The end.

It’s my job to be repetitive. My job. It’s my job…. :-)

I had never read Coleman before, and I understand now he has a history with the Powerline folks, but the column itself is spot on. The Powerline guys are hopelessly partisan and sophomoric. Even if one can claim the mainstream media are liberal (which, to me, is specious; the mainstream media are a lot of things before they are “liberal”), the straightline partisanship of the likes of Powerline is never met by the average American media organization.

Now that I have spent some time reading Powerline, I see that they say outrageous, partisan, and ignorant things routinely. And they post under the names “Big Trunk” and “Hind Rocket.” And they are surprised someone would call them on this?

Their reaction–and the wingnut shitstorm spreading across their blogs–is more proof of a very simple point. The rightwing can dish it out, but they can’t take it.

And they claim liberals play the victim card. Such whining! Such hysteria!

Getting back to the beginning of the discussion and Coleman.
While obviously agitated with his treatment at the mouths of the NARN, his point is that Powerline, Drudge, Hewitt and others are no less, and little more, than conduits of the Bush administration.

They are the pentultimate Yesmen who do the dirty work of the Republicans. The President can be gracious while the attack dogs tear apart anyone who gets in the way of the Radical agenda.

Powerline proved the CBS documents were fake, but what about the facts of the accusation they sought to prove? Did the President in his youth use his influence to get out of Vietnam? Of course he did, but that doesn’t matter to the blogsphere. The truth behind the lie is so much collateral damage.

RE: Footnote stating that bloggers would make lousy reporters.

I generally diagree with Henry’s views here. I don’t think he correctly understands the ultimate problem. MSM claims to be completely objective, but clearly is not. If you dispute this premise, then I doubt we’ll agree on much of anything. But I would suggest that you at least check out Patterico’s summary of biased “objective” news gathering and reporting at the LA Times. It is compelling evidence that the newspaper slants its news to advance a liberal agenda.

Bloggers object to this type of dishonesty in the MSM. I think they are generally correct in their objections. I also think that bloggers (in their roll as media critics) do not hide their biases is to their credit, Henry seems to believe otherwise. I do not see how having bloggers pretend to be objective (like MSM does) would be an improvement. I think a better (but unrealistic solution) would be for MSM news reporters and editors to fully disclose their political beliefs, so that readers can view their reporting in context, and take what they say with the grain of salt they find appropriate.

Anyway, I doubt I’ve added much here, but have a Happy New Year all!

PAB

Jason makes a great point. Instapundit has said in the past that his blog “consists entirely of my opinions and such factual links as I find interesting” (my emphasis). But when I follow his links I am led to a hodgepodge of materials, some of which are truly hateful, ignorant, and bizarre (such as the Belmont Club posting referenced above).

And, then, when these crackpot theories are proven wrong, he never follows up. He has done his damage, and has no interest in cleaning up the mess. Meanwhile, he can’t stop congratulating the blogosphere–and himself by extension–on its positive impact on the public debate. He is either hopelessly ignorant or duplicitous.

Just one comment: readers or viewers of both MSM and blogs have an obligation to bring their own knowledge and intelligent reasoning into play on the subject at hand, plus to use their access to the internet in the first place to shore up the old knowledge base immensely. Facts can be checked, diverse opinions can be read, and various authorities can be consulted. Furthermore, the reader is welcome to set forth his own opinion, most especially in blog threads. The MSM do not respond to individual comments very often.

Jason – Good comment nailing why those defending Reynolds should think hard about what they’re doing.

Bill – He’s worse than simply not following up corrections. Reynolds often turns opportunities to come clean back on anyone with the temerity to fact check him. He loves to crudely paraphrase the complaint and then either dodge the question by running down the person or quoting a convenient reader who writes pretty much what Heynolds would say himself.

I find it amusing that if you consider any run-of-the-mill right-wing blog, given any objective standards, it is virtually impossible to determine if it is actually a parody of some idealistic wingnut’s thoughts.

So if in fact, one of these sites consists of performance artists (e.g. the PowerLine bloggers are former lefties by their own admission), they could actually rake in a small fortune by writing an expose of how they snookered the masses.

A David Brock kind-of-moment in the making?

“The argument against Farrell is as clear as day: The MSM does not admit its biases, but the blogosphere does.”

I must have missed the part where Reynolds said “I’m an up-front whore for war!”

Happy new year, everyone.

I wrote about this: “I often come across arguments like Farrell’s refuting those who (allegedly) would ‘replace’ the Associated Press with Atrios, Command Post and Little Green Footballs. It’s easy. After all, you’re arguing with a phantom. Now Henry is an academic and a blogger (as Reynolds is, as I am) so I am surprised that he committed another no-no in our game, which is to characterize a writer as holding a particular view, and attack that view as nonsense, but supply no links allowing us to see for ourselves what the writer said and verify: yep, nonsense…” the rest is here (scroll down to After section.)

“Let me explain it” to you “in plain, simple English”.
The MSM purports to report the news factually and objectively. It clearly does not do so. It adamantly and hypocritically denies its’ obvious bias. Powerline, Kos et al are also biased but they acknowledge it up front. They present opinion and analysis in support. The “blogosphere” (actually the public via the internet) does fact check and often embarass the MSM.
That’s the point which for some reason, you are trying to obscure.
By the way, the NYTimes “admission” that it was “wrong on WMD” is like Fox admitting it was wrong that Kerry was a legitimate war hero. How dumb do you think your readers are?

Jesus, where did all these people come from? They show up, don’t read the comments, post the exact same talking points about the ‘MSM’ and ‘bias’, and then disappear.

I notice that conspicuously none of our visitors have addressed my points. The New York Times “buries the lede” on the 2002 midterm elections, and that’s evidence of “bias”. Yet, the Times spends 4 years trying to run Bill Clinton out of Washington, and a year printing every half-assed rumor that advances the Bush administration’s case for war, and this is somehow evidence of nothing. This is confirmation bias as mental illness.

I would be more interested in your response to Yuval’s 10:36 comment, Patterico.

Well, I hadn’t really intended to respond to it, because it’s so condescending:

I realize I’m talking to the proverbial brick wall here, so I’ll lay out my argument in chewy, bite-sized morsels so that the spittle-flecked Glennonites, chief among them patterico, can understand.

. . . .

2. Max Sawicky debunks Reynolds’ argument about the Sweden/Mississippi comparison with all thar them fancy facts and statistics, which apparently is way beyond patterico and the other Glennonites’ comprehension.

Forgive me if I wasn’t in a rush to engage in discussion with someone who made these sorts of statements.

But maybe Yuval is put out with me because I said his comment was a “slander” and feels that this sort of arrogance is appropriate as a result? Who knows?

In any event, I’ll respond to it because you asked me to, motoko — not because I’m particularly interested in getting into a debate with someone (Yuval) whose rhetoric is as supercilious as those comments I have just quoted.

Here’s my thinking:

I am agnostic on the substance of what Reynolds was talking about in 2002 about the Swedish economy. That’s not what this discussion is about. It’s about admitting errors, and being forthright and credible.

On his blog, Instapundit made the assertion (among other things) that Sweden was poorer than Mississippi. He made this and a number of other points, all as a response to the theory that Sweden was a “beacon of light” after which the U.S. should model itself. A number of people criticized him on the Mississippi point, including this MaxSpeak fellow. In updates, he linked to criticism and debated the merits of the claim. From what I can tell, the debate was fairly subjective, since (as MaxSpeak said) “poor” can mean different things. Still, Reynolds considered the arguments and ultimately ended up conceding the point.

To me, this was an admirable demonstration of the superiority of blogging to the handling of information by Big Media. That doesn’t mean bloggers are superior to journalists, by the way. It means that conversation, give-and-take, and a willingness to admit error are superior to unilateral pronouncements, very limited feedback, and fighting corrections tooth and nail.

Then, in comments on Maxspeak, Reynolds notes that he had linked to criticism of the piece, and — clearly peeved by an e-mail he had gotten about another piece he had linked to — made the “free ice cream” observation.

But Yuval portrays the whole incident I just described as: Reynolds screws up, but refuses to admit he was wrong, hiding behind a link he used. Yuval says Reynolds:

essentially hides under the skirt of the bloggers he linked to.

Yuval completelely omits the part where Reynolds had admitted he was wrong about the issue in question. And he made that admission on his blog — meaning it was a very public admission, since his blog is read by a lot more people than Maxspeak’s is.

Yuval pretends that Reynolds just didn’t care about the facts, and when caught with his pants down, simply pled: “Hey, I’m just a blogger.”

That’s crap, and that (in my view) is a slander of Reynolds.

Couple of observations:

1) Most bloggers are doing this as a hobby or personal interest. It’s not their day job. But that says something. When a ‘part timer’ with some access to expertise can bring on MemoGate what does that say to all the J schools out there? If I were the Dean at Columbia I would be taking a hard look at my entire program scholacticly.

2) The Old Media is on a collision course with economic reality. There is no way an MSM operation will be able to compete with some guy with a $5k server and some T1 lines. The cost structures are a ratio of 20:1 minimum. And MSM major achilles heel is cost of distribution, especially print.

It would not take much for an electronic ‘Village Voice’ with good writing, a fair editorial policy and a willingness to take risks to clean the mat with something like the WaPo. The economics are in their favor over the long haul.

3) Technology already exists to make a USA Today First Person electronic paper. Using just first person feeds it could be done, both for print and video. But someone would have to pony up the labor to do the edits a rewrites such an effort will entail. And maybe that is where journalism is headed.

JohnM

Seth Finkelstein has actually reversed the reality of the relationship between citizen bloggers and “professional” journalists that are paid to adhere to an objective process, or to provide critical analysis as op/ed.

Anyone can judge and criticize “professional” journalists based on the stated standards of professional journalism without being hypocritical. The problem that professional journalists face is that they do not (and perhaps may not be able due to structural biases) often meet their own standards for “objective”, “fair”, “balanced” and “accurate”.

An easy analogy would be criticizing moralists for not living up to their own stated standards for moral behavior without yourself being a saint. If you never held yourself to live by the same moral standards, you may still judge moralists by their own standards and point out their hypocrisy when they fall short.

But that does beg the question: “What are the standards, ethics, or structural biases of blog(er)s?”

What is considered good blogging in terms of fairness, accuracy, completeness, access, interactivity, …?

It’s easy to say there are none. It’s easy to create a strawman standard for someone else and then accuse her/him of hypocrisy.

It’s also intellectually dishonest.

That’s what Henry has done here and his defenders contort themselves to ignore – both as part of Henry’s disingenuousness and that all bloggers face the same question.

An easy analogy would be criticizing moralists for not living up to their own stated standards for moral behavior without yourself being a saint.

Whoa, wait a minute. Are you saying that anyone can criticize anyone else without ever sounding hypocritical? The French can criticize Americans, Arab dictators can criticize Israelies, bin Laden the US government?

Interesting. Is this concept actually shared by sanctimonious wingnuts like Reynolds, Sullivan, etc?

Are you saying that anyone can criticize anyone else without ever sounding hypocritical?

Uh, no, but you already knew that didn’t you?

Better version:

“The fact that Reynolds didn’t articulate his support for the war in the ridiculous way you suggest doesn’t mean he hasn’t said he’s for the war.”

There’s a difference between “I support the war in Iraq and think our problems there are oversold” and “I’m a professional whore for the Republican party.” Contrast Daniel Drezner (on a good day) vs. Jonah Goldberg.

Reynolds is a less-funny Goldberg with a bigger readership, but he, and his fellow travelers, seriously seems to think he’s playing the part of an honest broker here.

Tim, I think you’re overlooking that there’s more than just the journalist standards criticism in play, which is what’s leading to the “two-step” issue. If all that matters is holding journalists to their own purported standards, then blogger critics don’t have a claim to being anything more than ankle-biters, carpers at inevitable mistakes in any undertaking. This is often an unsatisfying moral ground.

An obvious MSM reply to the initial critique by bloggers, is “Yes, theMSM makes mistakes, but WE TRY TO BE ACCURATE. We make an effort, we have an ideal, etc. etc.”

When the blogger critics continue, “But you messed-up here, you didn’t get that right there, and it’s because you’re a bunch of liberal agents of the Democratic party, etc. etc.”, then we go back to the reply above.

At this point, it’s just too tempting to try to grab some of that moral high ground of intellectual standards and honesty, with all the rhetorical perils that entails. Otherwise, it wouldn’t even be a question of whether there’s an I’m-just-a-blogger get-out-of-responsibility-free card.

Tim, not true?

Bin Laden, reading from a statement, criticized President Bush’s handling of the Sept. 11 attacks, saying, “I never thought the supreme commander would leave 50,000 people in the buildings (the twin towers) at the time they needed him the most so he could listen to a girl tell a story about her goat.”

Is this a fair criticizm of a professional US president by a person who himself is not being a saint? I think it is – you? Just checking…

Tim,
Would you be able to distinguish between the two? I’m doubtful.

Do you mean here that hypocrisy is in the eyes of the beholder or that I am a freak of nature?

In any case, why do you think your perception of what consitiute hypocrisy is better than mine – if it indeed requires such a delicate detection?

Something to remember about bias… if it is passed off as standard, then anything that deviates is ‘abnormal.’ Hence, when rigid ideological bias as is purported to exist in the ‘unbiased’ and ‘fair’ media (i.e. standard television and newspaper media), then when someone like FOXNEWS or blogs come along, they are automatically seen as deviant.

There’s a linguistic analogy: it has been said that the omniscience of the prime masculine in English makes it standard. You know it as well as I do, as well as the movements to displace it as standard, but it is nontheless a basic linguistic postulate of English, and therefore it is observed first and the other (the feminine) is hence derived, as from a rib.

Truth be told, there’s always bias, and the better we are at recognizing it, the better we can rejoice in the diversity.

Tim: So since the argument extends far beyond journalistic standards, there’s no point in making cramped objections which require it be strictly confined there.

In fact, the CBS memos scandal makes an excellent case study to outline, well, frankly, the outright pathology of some viewpoints (e.g. one commentor above “… CBS was intentionally propagating bullshit.”)

A horde of wingnuts goes after Dan Rather and CBS all the time, and has been after him personally for about 30 years. That’s around three decades in which they’ve been crying wolf at him, a numbing chorus of: “wolf. Wolf. Wolf! WOLF!! *W*O*L*F*!!! **WW**OO**LL**FF**!!!! …”. One time, there actually was a wolf, and he didn’t believe it at first. He thought it was the same old wolf-crying.

This has got to be one of the most understandable human reactions imaginable.

It requires the blindest, cruelest, adherence to rote, to read deep journalistic institutional meaning into his personal denial.

I have no love for the MSM. I’ve seen journalists get away with backstabbing, plagiarism, vicious smears. But many of the blogger-critics strike me as even worse! All of the abuse of power without even a shred of responsibility. Am I overly cynical? I think I’m being realistic about the evidence. Whether or not it’s necessary, I won’t say.

One time, there actually was a wolf, and he didn’t believe it at first. He thought it was the same old wolf-crying.

Well, except that this isn’t the first time there was a wolf, either at CBS News/60 Minutes or relating specifically to Dan Rather.[1][2][3][4][5] Were there wolves every time the bias ranters ranted? No. But it is untrue that “One time, there actually was a wolf, …”.

What is even more pertinent is that CBS, and Dan Rather specifically, did not react out of the norm this time. This was a characteristic response. But these were not characteristic times. Blogs are a part of that change, but not as much, perhaps, as some might proclaim. Heightened partisanship, especially during a Presidential election season, in fact weeks before the election, might have played some part in Dan Rather’s demise this time as opposed to those other times.

re: … the outright pathology of some viewpoints (e.g. one commentor above “… CBS was intentionally propagating bullshit.”)

I am anxious to read the CBS report, you?

This has got to be one of the most understandable human reactions imaginable.

Was it understandable? Predictable, perhaps, based on institutional MSM behavior. But, to me and others, it was the opposite of understandable (un-understandable … perhaps even mystifying) as either a professional journalistic response or the response a media-savvy organization would choose.

But, no, not an atypical Dan Rather response, despite it being outside the professional and ethical journalistic response.

Tim: Why does “bias” for you begin and end with Dan Rather?

Breaking my resolution to avoid silly flame wars here but I have to register my amusement at how so many people seem to have missed this not at all marginal point raised by unkle kvetch: the term “mainstream media” mysteriously omits Fox News, the New York Post, and the Washington Times…

Which makes this whole instablogger crusade against the “mainstream” a very transparent travesty for advocacy of *more* bias, but in the direction of those media mysteriously omitted in the attacks to said “mainstream”.

But even there, there’s another point not-so-mysteriously flying over the crusaders’s heads here. The structure of any media, _including_ Fox News and the NYP and WT, is characterised by the presence of a few things that blogs do not and cannot by nature have: editorial boards and legal offices. With all that it entails. So even when the level of discourse can sink to crass or offensive or tabloid-like levels, no editor will simply give carte blanche to anyone to publish or broadcast whatever instant reactions to the news. And even in the US where there is no journalists guild or charter like in some other countries, and no restrictions on hate speech, a mainstream news source (so not counting radio talk shows and the like) will still have to take some measures to uphold at least some basic standards of the profession, if anything only to try and avoid libel and/or alienating too many viewers/readers. Yes, even Fox News. If in doubt, just imagine if it was run by Reynolds instead. Commercial and legal reasons are not something blogs have to be concerned about in the same way at all. So it becomes absurd to even make that comparison. Political blogs are like discussion forums and usenet groups. They’re unregulated and not subject to editorial, legal or commercial concerns. It feels dumb to even point this out. They’re just a bigger outlet for readers/viewers _commentary_. You can find all sorts of stuff in there, from idiocy to brilliancy and everything in between, depending on the direction the authors choose, what kind of commenters they get, what echo chambers form, etc. But who in their right mind would evern want to get their _news_ entirely from there?

This whole “blogs versus the media” is just a massive ego trip for people who think they can set up their own radio talk shows with a fraction of the costs and responsibilities that doing that would require.

Oh, another obvious point: no media, no matter what their corporate slogan is, can ever be 100% “accurate” or “fair” or “objective”. There is no such thing. Human beings are not robots, total objectivity is impossible even in the best good faith attempts. That goes even more for media, they never exist in some abstract vacuum, they are always inevitably influenced by the social and political environment they (ie. their editors, reporters, marketing team, etc.) operate in. The very _selection_ of what to report and/or comment on, nevermind the _how_ to report and comment on it, is already a first level of subjectivity with huge implications. Whether determined by editors or target audiences or marketing or geographic location or national interests or all of those things together. So terms like “objectivity” mean nothing. The relevant term is responsibility – again, professional, legal, editorial, commercial, etc. There lies the enormous difference between any form of mainstream media, in any country, and any form of personal instant publishing.

There you go, I’ll probably end up in some special circle of hell dedicated to people who repeat the bleeding obvious, but it’s still a few circles away from the one for people who pretend to completely ignore it.

Tim: Let me guess. You think bias to the left is everywhere, right? Even though the New York Times spent 4 years trying to run Bill Clinton out of Washington, even though ABC’s Nightline ran doctored video tapes to try to make Hillary Clinton look like she was lying about Whitewater, you think that the media is biased against you.

Jason:

Reynolds is a less-funny Goldberg with a bigger readership, but he, and his fellow travelers, seriously seems to think he’s playing the part of an honest broker here.

I have no idea what that means. Reynolds has opinions, and he tells you what they are. If you are asserting that he is a professional whore for the Republican party, then one of two things is true: 1) you don’t read his blog sufficiently to give an informed opinion about his views, or 2) you are a liar.

Sorry to be so blunt, but that’s where we are.

A professional whore for a party doesn’t express disagreement with anything the party does. Reynolds does.

If you want to continue to argue with me about that, fine. Make the assertion that either: professional whores regularly disagree with their party; or that Reynolds has never disagreed with the Republicans.

If you choose the former, then I’ll enjoy watching you do the two-step of explaining that position.

If you choose the latter, I’ll be happy to prove you wrong — but only if you promise that, once I prove you wrong, you’ll then come on here and admit it.

All of this assumes that you have the courage to return to this thread and respond to my points at all.

Tim: “One time, there actually was a wolf,” is an allusion to the wolf parable. It would be silly for anyone to assert that Dan Rather or CBS has never made a mistake before (though using the forged memos was obviously an enormous one). However, the idea is that there’s no overarching institutional critique to be had in the characteristic response when one takes into account the characteristic wolf-crying. That is, it’s completely understandable for Dan Rather and CBS to react as if they’re being smeared by partisan hacks, because a great deal of the time, they are. That’s not mystifying at all. Perhaps this is a driver of differing reactions in understanding – not grasping how much distracting partisan noise is generated, drowning the occasional bit of signal. Sure, there may be a code somewhere which says roughly “Every cry of *WOLF!* should be fully investigated with courtesy and respect”. But there’s little moral high ground in complaining that doesn’t happen, but the code says it should.

At the risk of being accused of self-promotion, I offer the following idea for the benefit of the blogosphere:

http://counterpundit.blogspot.com/2005/01/calling-all-programmers.html

Farrell is missing the point completely. Sure, so Power Line is biased. So is Crooked Timber, and 60 Minutes, and everyone else. The difference between blogs and the mainstream media is that the mainstream media prefers keep it’s biases covert, while the blogosphere touts them openly.

Reporters hide under the pretence that they’re “objective”. The blogosphere makes no such pretences. Crooked Timber is a smart, well-written, and often interesting blog. They’re also biased towards the political left, and I bear that in mind when I read them. Power Line is also an intelligent and interesting blog, and they’re unabashedly right-wing; something I also take into consideration when judging their veracity.

CBS don’t do that. They con their viewers into believing they’re “unbiased”, and then try to persuade them with subjective arguments while their defences are down. This sort of covert bias is far more harmful than the open bias of blogs and opinion columnists, precisely because the viewer doesn’t go in with fair warning.

Bloggers believe in disclosing their biases, and most do. The mainstream media claims to believe in “objectivity”, but in reality is is biased as anyone else. It’s the mainstream media that is being hypocritical here, not the blogs, and it is certainly no sin for the blogs to point this out.

Tim: If I have misunderstood your point, then I apologize.

There’s really no point in trying to respond to Henry’s “Update”.

I think that Henry is misrepresenting Glenn Reynolds and that Henry’s “simple English” run-on argument is much more convoluted than what Reynolds is saying.

But as someone said this thread is already way too “meta”.

Good to see that the two sides of the blogosphere are united on this. I mean, I don’t read Instapundit, but I can only assume that he links to Brad DeLong’s “Why oh why can’t we have a better press corps?” series on a regular basis.

It’s only right and fair that we should expect our media to fact check the press releases of government institutions, rather than blindly printing them and therefore acting as tools of the establishment. That they don’t do that is shameful, so I’m pleased that both Brad DeLong and Glenn Reynolds can join forces here.

For crying out loud. Two updates and I still have no freaking idea what point the author of this post thinks he’s making. What is there to walk away with here?

First there’s a straw man that Glenn Reynolds, or someone, thinks that blogs (WEB LOGS!!) will, or should, or something, “replace” ALL THE OTHER MEDIA. Um. What?? I don’t know of anyone who believes this or anything remotely like it. The author tosses out a few links that, he says, gives this “impression”. I followed them. They don’t. What else is there to say? Believing that (generally speaking) web logs are rising and MSM is falling in influence, and that the former can play a nice healthy role in helping “police”/factcheck the latter, keeping it more honest, *even making MSM better*, etc., is not the same as believing that the former will “replace” the latter! It’s just not.

Second the author criticizes Glenn, in particular, for complaining about liberal bias in the media. Why is Glenn not allowed to do this? Because he’s biased himself. This all might be a persuasive retort to Glenn and other rightwing “hacks” if their objection to MSM was that it is biased per se, i.e. that the point is that Humans Aren’t Allowed To Be Biased. But, as far as I can tell, *and many many people have already made this point*, it’s not!! The complaint is not that MSM ‘is biased’, it’s that MSM is biased *and constantly pretends not to be*, trying to pass off its biased output as “objective”. Do you understand the difference because acknowledged bias and unacknowledged bias? And why some people might think it important to point the latter out? Even biased people? (*Especially* biased people!)

You can think the difference unimportant. Well, I disagree, and I suppose Glenn does too, *and that’s the actual typical complaint* which you pretend to be addressing. Ok? It’s one thing to think that complaint petty, or wrong, or whatever. That’s your right. But it’s quite another to IGNORE the actual complaint and REFUSE to acknowledge it when people explain to you, over and over, what their complaint is.

A straw man, and another straw man. Is there anything else contained in this post that I am missing? Will there continue to be pointless republished Updates that completely ignore these (entirely unoriginal) points I’ve made to you, as so many others have before me?