| Michael Skube writes an op-ed for the LA Times, in which he touts the benefits of good-old fashioned journalism:
One gets the uneasy sense that the blogosphere is a potpourri of opinion and little more. The opinions are occasionally informed, often tiresomely cranky and never in doubt. Skepticism, restraint, a willingness to suspect judgment and to put oneself in the background -- these would not seem to be a blogger's trademarks.
[snip]
The more important the story, the more incidental our opinions become. Something larger is needed: the patient sifting of fact, the acknowledgment that assertion is not evidence and, as the best writers understand, the depiction of real life. Reasoned argument, as well as top-of-the-head comment on the blogosphere, will follow soon enough, and it should. But what lodges in the memory, and sometimes knifes us in the heart, is the fidelity with which a writer observes and tells. The word has lost its luster, but we once called that reporting.
Actually, you won't find any argument from me here. Nor from many other bloggers. We're news parasites: we feed off the work that traditional journalists do. I'd be lost without traditional reporting, and I find that the facts often do speak for themselves.
The problem is, of course, that this traditional style of journalism has been in steady decline. Investigative journalism is expensive; and media outlets need to satisfy the never-quenched Wall Street mandate for steadily increasing profits. With traditional journalism weakening, more watch dogs are needed. Thus, the blogs.
Now that's an interesting topic in of itself. But it doesn't end there. Skube's op-ed happened to include the name of one blogger who does do investigative journalism, and has a staff of reporters working for him at his site. That's Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo.
Marshall, a little confused at his inclusion in the editorial contacted Skube, questioning whether he was actually familiar with his site. It turned out Marshall's name was added by an editor, and Skube had never heard of Marshall before, nor ever read the work at his site.
Josh Marshall:
...if you look at what he says, it seems Skube's editor at the Times oped page didn't think he had enough specific examples in his article decrying our culture of free-wheeling assertion bereft of factual backing. Or perhaps any examples. So the editor came up with a few blogs to mention and Skube signed off. And Skube was happy to sign off on the addition even though he didn't know anything about them.
I grant you that the blogosphere needs better bloggers. But, as usual, the need for better critics seems even more acute.
Amen. |
