In one of the most bizarre attacks on blogs and blogging from the mainstream media this year, the Missouri Valley Times Newspaper has suggested that blogs pose a threat to free speech in the United States.
The editorial in the paper states:
“Many mainstreamers slip up and find themselves doing the kind of “journalism” bloggers practice with such ease. It gets them in real trouble (witness the fall of Rather, one of the finest journalists of the past 30 years) and is a real danger to the continued protection afforded by the First Amendment, our real freedom of the press. And, freedom of the press, remember, is actually freedom for all of us to speak and write unshackled by government interference.”
But not content in stating alone that blogging is the end of freedom of speech as we know it, the Editorial pleads to readers to ignore blogs as a valid source of news based solely on the basis that MSM is somehow more honest and truthful:
“Please, young folks, do not believe everything you read-especially if it is in a blog. Hold your favorite writer to a standard of truth you’d expect from us.”…
but it gets better. Don’t laugh too loudly:
“The trouble is, among the Internet crowd, i.e. the demographic we mainstreamers have the most trouble reaching (18 to 49), blogs are accepted at face value, widely read and the so-called information they spew spread as fact, whether fact, indeed, really exists. That presents a tremendous challenge for real journalists everywhere, whether they be of the television, daily newspaper, or weekly paper variety. When readers no longer care about facts or the simple truth, but crave the sensationalistic screeds jamming the web, our job becomes tougher.”
They just don’t get it do they! Bloggers do care about facts, its that we just don’t believe that the MSM provides facts. The difference between bloggers and the MSM is that we admit to bias, MSM pretends that its not biased went it actually is, and in that regard bloggers beat so-called “real journalists” hands down on the basis of honesty.
