Asymmetrical Information

I agree with your observation that "there is a distinction between Glenn's 'political blogosphere' and Virginia's 'policy blogs'".

I don't see where Virginia's observation is inconsistent with Glenn's (the parts quoted in the post, at least), unless she is interpreting his comment much more broadly than I am.

'political blogosphere' and Virginia's 'policy blogs',

And Glenn's is neither. In fact most are 'rumor' blogs and do not pass any journalism test I can think of.

judson -

I don't think Glenn Reynolds has claimed to be doing anything other than running a web log about what interests him, and to be doing it in good faith - so the tone of your post seems a bit harsh.

I concur that much of blogging has little to do with journalism, but that comes from a personal impression that I derive from observation, and not from the application of any 'journalism test'.

This may be a useful distinction to make, in some cases - what characteristics do you feel such a journalism test should include?

There has been at least one recent court case that turned on whether an individual was a journalist or not, so the question is of more than academic interest (and not meant to be snarky, btw).

I guess the blogs I read are closer to those of Virginia's than Glenn's. I think blogging (or its successor) will eventually replace journalism. Journalists are always writing about stuff they don't know very well. The best bloggers in my mind are experts who can write, cutting out the middle-man (a middle-man who often damages the product, no less).

The main value-add of journalism was in gathering information, but information is getting easier and easier to come by. Which might explain why journalists are getting desperate, constantly belittling blogs and going for scoops that aren't there. Feels like the RIAA reaction to file-sharing, only without a legal leg to stand on.

The difference between blogs and journalistic enterprises is only in the amount of timely information available. For centuries journalists have pretended that, not only do they have access to better information, but they also interpret and present the information better because of their "journalistic" training and experience. Blogs expose this pretense utterly and therefore expose the bias and incompetence of most so-called journalists. As more and more information becomes instantly available to every blogger, this sham of a profession of 'journalist' will be destroyed completely.

> do not pass any journalism test I can think of.

Yet, they provide a more valuable service than the so called "journalists".

Are journalists failing the same tests or are the tests useless?

I don't think that the bloggers provide a more valuable service than mainstream journalists. The main difference, as far as I can see, is that bloggers don't do much, or in many cases, any investigative journalism. They usually provide analysis and/or commentary about items already reported upon by other outlets. While bloggers provide a useful function, there is no substitute for the newsgathering done by the MSM,even taking shoddy work like at CBS recently.

Virginia has a very fair gripe about the level of discourse not really being driven by discourse, but by whatever. I can sense and empathize with her frustration that no matter what the media (print, TV, radio, PBS, NPR, blogosphere), meritocracy in discourse always managed to get trumped by personality and popularity and other silly factors.

An example that I'm sure is close to Virginia's heart because she mentions her snidely often enough... People in LA might be familiar with Sherry Bebitch Jaffe. She is like the Elanor Clift of local political commentary, kindof a step above Gloria Allred only because Ms. Allred is that annoying. The obvious jokes with Ms. Be-a-bitch Jaffe's name don't do her justice. She is that intellectually grating. But she somehow has a good TV presence. Physically, she is a homely version of Geraldine Ferraro, but she works well on TV. Her opinions are disjointed and whiney and nonsensical, but they work well on TV. Ms. Bebitch Jaffe, does though, look "put together" on TV.

By contrast, I once saw Virginia interviewed on Channel 9 here -- must have been 1994ish. Virginia, unlike Bebitch Jaffe, a very eloquent, reasoned, and attractive woman. But she did not work well on TV. The camera angle seemed to be from above her, as if at the top of the stairs with her at a desk at the bottom. Her long hair, usually an attractive feature on any woman, looked like "too much" as it provided a wide background to her face. And her voice, accentuated because of the imbecile asking her stupid questions, totally did not work on TV. Remember the guy who claimed to go nuts when the Entertainment Tonight infobabe talked?? Well, I could almost see that happening with Virginia staged that way, and I felt sooooo bad for her because as Reason editor, she was far and away the most thoughtful and in-touch voice in the small-l libertarian scene of the day. Nick Gillespie does not hold a candle to her. I even stopped subscribing to Reason because not only is the mag butt-ugly now (burnt orange has never been and never will be an "in" color), but Nick's forward every time is either how illicit drugs are making him a better guy, or I was always expecting to read something about tatts or piercings or random sexual experiences that I just didn't want to know.

Sadly, Virginia does not have the wide appeal that so many of the charlatans do. Perhaps she's just topped out after a meteoric rise and stellar career the way, for example, Laura Ingraham has. Both are/were at the top end of the attractive scale among their female peers. Both are quite sharp and witty and determined. In Laura's early apearances on McLaughlin, she would just sit back calmly and pounce in such a decisive and devastating way. Perhaps success as an attractive woman demands that one be more like Paula Zahn or Laurie Dhue -- pseudointelligent, non-threatening, and a bubblehead (at least on TV).

For centuries journalists have pretended that, not only do they have access to better information, but they also interpret and present the information better because of their "journalistic" training and experience. Blogs expose this pretense utterly and therefore expose the bias and incompetence of most so-called journalists.

Oh come now, journalism is just like any other profession -- you need the right set of talents, abilities, and motivations to coalesce in one person, else you don't have a good journalist. Concomitantly a person who DOES bring those qualities together AND is willing to do the homework can, in fact, have better information and more thoughtful opinions on the state of current events.

The problem we have before us today is a breakdown within the profession, in which the traits of good journalism of old are being lost -- fewer on-site reports, fewer international bureaus, greater quantities of sourcing from news agencies or other papers in lieu of investigative reporting, and greater amounts of news-as-entertainment-programming.

We could blame any number of factors I suppose. Coccooning, costs of doing business rising disproportionate to rates of return, audiences more responsive to entertainment than pure information, whatever. But bloggers haven't "exposed" anything -- sure, some are capable writers, but in many cases they themselves link to a variety of media outlets. What they are uniquely capable of bringng to the debate, however, is a sort of meta-compiling (pulling multiple disparate sources together on one page) and a special ability to force transparency.

But bloggers won't 'replace' traditional media. They may have an ever-increasing role in it and even blur the distinction between blogging and reporting, but not everyone out there gets their news and opinion from a computer terminal.

Michael Crichton gave a speech a few years ago about how badly journalism had become nothing more than pundits speculating about the future. In the speech he makes a devastating point about the news -- every time we read an article about which we have personal knowledge we are appalled at how badly the paper screws up the facts. Then we read the rest of the paper and assume it is factually correct. He calls it amnesia.

Rathergate just shows us how bad the news media really is. They don't screw up that badly all the time (probably because they aren't ALWAYS trying to screw Republicans with a vengenance -- sometimes it is merely with disdain), but they get it wrong quite often and sometimes they are really pathetic.

Simply repackaging press releases and serving as outlets for leakers over the years can really diminish skills. Isn't it amazing how a story isn't news until some official issues a statement about it?

> The main difference, as far as I can see, is that bloggers don't do much, or in many cases, any investigative journalism.

Considering how badly the MSM does "investigative journalism", that's a plus for bloggers.

Yes, MSM tends to have a reporter at more events, but they dilute that with spin and event reporting is such a small part of the MSM.

Of course, I'm not referring to the two areas where MSM does a good job - the society and sports pages.

Eamon:

"The main difference, as far as I can see, is that bloggers don't do much, or in many cases, any investigative journalism."

Oh really? Then please explain the recent CBS memo fiasco. This incident exposed the quality of the "investigative journalism" that is sadly all too common in the established media: poor to nonexistant. In the memo fiasco, Mapes at CBS worked on the story (if you can believe published reports) off and on for FIVE YEARS and got it absolutely wrong. In contrast, the blogosphere - once given access to the same "proof" on which Mapes' story was based - proved CBS' conclusions were unfounded in less than 72 hrs.

On an individual basis, you are likely correct; the individual blogger probably doesn't devote all that much investigative or analytical time to a single story. Collectively, however, the end result of stories examined critically in the blogosphere is often as good - and sometimes far superior - to those investigated by the established media for three reasons.

First, what each individual blogger contributes is often in his/her field of personal or professional expertise. This is far different from the established media. Journalists are only rarely subject matter experts on the stories they cover.

Second, in the the blogosphere hundreds to tens of thousands contribute to "hot stories". This means that collectively topics examined in the blogosphere may well get at least one or two decimal orders of magnitude more total investigation and analysis than does the average story in the established media. One hour each from 1,000 contributors is roughly 1/2 man-year of effort. I don't think journalists devote anywhere near this much time to most stories.

Thirdly, the blogosphere itself is an excellent "BS detector". Obvious BS is nearly always noted as such by someone who then publicly raises the "BS flag". The conclusions reached are literally peer reviewed by thousands - many of whom literally are subject matter experts in the field. In contrast, the recent CBS memo fiasco was allowed to go as far as it did because CBS apparently depended on or two "experts" selected because they happen to tell the reporter what he/she wanted to hear; dissenting experts were ignored.

For an animal kingdom model of how the blogosphere operates, think of the way wolves hunt large herbivores (e.g., elk or moose). Individually, each wolf is no match for the herbivore and would most likely fail. However, collectively the pack will almost certainly be successful.

Good bloggers do more investigative journalism than they're credited for.

Rarely do they get in the car and drive to where a story is and snap photos--but sometimes they do. Often, their investigations involve doing research on claims made in a news story, and detailing with facts and references why those claims were false. That is not just "media criticism," that's investigative reporting. And sometimes those investigations are done on the media, and sometimes they're done on politicians or corporations or individuals.

If I get the transcript of a political speech or an item of legislation from C-SPAN, or the White House, House, or Senate, then report what I find to my readers and give them the high points, I've just done as much work as many full-time political reporters ever do. And it's not punditry, it's reporting.

Ditto if I write a story that describes a recent speech given, whether or not I saw it on TV. Hell, half the time political reporters write their stories based on what they themselves just saw on TV, since most of them have stuff like CNN, Fox, and MSNBC going in their offices 24/7.

If I hear an assertion by some corporate spokesman or government official, and with some digging discover that what he's saying is false--or, that what he's saying is true--then I have engaged in journalism even if all I have done is sit at home in my pee-jays and surfed relevant links from objective sources and typed for an hour.

There is far more journalism, real journalism, going on in blogs than most people realize. And there is far less "real journalism" in the mainstream press than many people believe.

Hondo, Yes, really.
For all the talk about what bloggers did in the Memogate episode, the heavy lifting was done by the MSM. It was the outlets like the WAPO that actually went out and hired experts to examine the documents. It was the Post that actually spoke to Killian's widow and son. I am unaware of a blogger doing this. It was the Dallas Morning News that tracked down the secretary. It was Newsweek that found Burkett as source. Bloggers did play an important role, but most of them offered nothing substantial in the way of actual facts or research. They just threw out theories like such and such font wasn't available, you can make a document that looks very similar on Word, without doing any investigative work in terms of contacting witnesses or experts.
The blogosphere does provide an important function, but it gets things wrong at least as often as the MSM. Many on the sphere have gone with false stories, like the Kerry "affair" by simply passing on what they read on Drudge, who himself admits to not being a journalist. Others ran with the fake photo of Kerry and Jane Fonda. It may well be an excellent BS detector, but it can also be a spreader as well. There are some very good blogs out there, but many that are simply forums for the host and commenters to spout off their opinions. Again, this can be important too, but it is no substitute for the info that can be obtained from sources in the MSM. Heck, this blog itself is linked to many such outlets.

> It was the outlets like the WAPO that actually went out and hired experts to examine the documents.

Yes, MSM paid folks, but that was AFTER the blogosphere had published analysis done by experts and folks who had developed the relevant technology. Is it actually significant that the MSM had to pay folks to get what bloggers got for free?

Which reminds me - one of the blog experts is a CS prof who developed the relevant technology. Did MSM consult anyone with comparable credentials?

As to the other "contributions", the document problem proved that the memos were faked. The other stuff was just fluff.

BTW - DailyPundit fingered Burkett as the key link long before MSM even admitted that there was a problem.

It was the outlets like the WAPO that actually went out and hired experts to examine the documents...I am unaware of a blogger doing this.

Bill Ardolino of INDC Journal contacted an expert to examine the documents. When some said that the IBM Composer would have been able to re-create the memos, Jeff Harrell at The Shape of Days tracked down a hobbyist specializing in the Composer, who did a comparison test. Which brings me to my second point:

Bloggers did play an important role, but most of them offered nothing substantial in the way of actual facts or research. They just threw out theories like such and such font wasn't available, you can make a document that looks very similar on Word, without doing any investigative work in terms of contacting witnesses or experts.

It don't take no damn expert to tell that the document examined by Ardolino and Harrell was not typed on no damned ordinary typewriter. Now, you did need someone with expertise -- like the hobbyist guy, an amateur with special knowledge, not an "expert" with no clue but some sort of paper saying he's an expert -- to tell you that the Composer existed, and could possibly have created the memo.

But then you'd have to ask yourself how likely it is that Killian took the time (and it would've taken time) to nicely typeset a "memo to file". For that you have to use your own common sense, because there's not an expert on earth -- credentialed or not -- who can tell you that. Only Killian can, and he's dead.

There are many, many times when the power and money of Big Media can produce discover things most private citizens could not. This was not one of those times.

Good journalists can do a number of things that bloggers cannot:

1) File reports of the "I was there, this is what happened, and I've got pictures to prove it" sort, and be far more credible than some unknown blogger. A good example was the journalist that revealed the My Lai massacre in a photo spread in Lifw magazine. Of course that was thirty-some years ago, and all I can think of recently are counter-examples:
- Jayson Blair. It took his bosses at the NYT years to figure out that Blair often wasn't there. If you can't trust their veracity, you're better off looking for agreement or disagreement among several bloggers who claim to have been there.
- Major network newsmen faking videos of truck gas tanks exploding, etc.
- Staged events. If the event wasn't staged, how did the reporter know when and where to show up for it? (This is why sports reporting is comparatively good.) Except for pure dumb luck and reporting what someone said at a press conference, reporters usually arrive at newsworthy real events after the action is over.

2) Examine evidence which isn't accessible to the general public. E.g., if the original memos had been available and if CBS was a responsible news organization, they could have tested the type and age of the paper and, checked for the indentations typewriters leave in paper, and microscopically examined the signature and the "typed" characters. You can't run these tests on an image file. However, CBS has now wrecked it's credibility to the point that, if it looks bogus to me, I'll just figure that any experts they've lined up to testify to the documents passing all those tests were bribed.

"do not pass any journalism test I can think of."

High praise indeed!

Is it possible that journalists and bloggers could and do work as a counterpoint to each other? Maybe this is a rather naive view, but if you, as a journalist, knew that the "BS flag" would be raised by the blogosphere, wouldn't that motivate you to practice more thorough, responsible journalism (perhaps by interviewing a blogger) ? And similarly, wouldn't you, as a blogger with specialized knowlege, appreciate that someone else is filing FOIA requests and compiling facts for analysis?

Then, there's the fact that the audiences for each medium don't necessarily overlap - I know people that read their city newspaper religiously, and have never read its online edition or a blog analysis of the major stories with any sort of regularity, if at all. Until the readership of both merge completely, there's little cause for this debate. And, of course, the stories covered by each aren't always the same. While blogs do a great job covering national and international issues and events, they don't necessarily analyze the policy and practicality of local issues - the impact of a new railroad on a particular county, state government corruption, or city sanitation policy, all of which the best local and regional newspapers cover.

I agree with anony-mouse that blogging will never truly supplant traditional journalism. The lines may blur, but I think that there is a great potential for complimentary action. Besides, the debate shouldn't be over who is better or more important, it should be about how best to disseminate and communicate information. While opinion will never be completely separate from "objective" journalistic accounts, as the purveyors of information (whether facts or analysis), don't we all have the responsibility to do as much as we can with the means available, in order to reach the widest audience possible? New and traditional media aren't necessarily at odds, nor should they be.

I think blogging (or its successor) will eventually replace journalism.

Back in the pre-WW2 era, the term "record album" referred to, literally, a record album: a hardcover book with pages that contained heavy, fragile discs, each of which had two or three songs. When the long-playing record came out after the war, people called them "LPs" for a while, then started referring to LPs as "albums". Then came cassettes and CDs, which are also called "albums". I'm guessing eventually groups of MP3s (and/or whatever technology replaces MP3s) will eventually also get the tag "album".

Similarily, "journalism" once referred to what newspapers did to root out and report stories; then came radio and TV and the internet. Ultimately, blogging won't "replace" journalism as much as become it, maybe even the central part of it.

What Dean (and others) have said. And isn't it nice to have Mr. Den Beste join in! This thread itself shows how bloggers and commenters can do a pretty darn thorough analysis of an issue.

markm,

Good journalists can do a number of things that bloggers cannot:

1) File reports of the "I was there, this is what happened, and I've got pictures to prove it" sort,

And why is this beyond the capability of a blogger? Consider the various Iraqi bloggers whose credibility is quite high because they didn't have to "go anywhere" to get to where the news was.

And why is this beyond the capability of a blogger? Consider the various Iraqi bloggers whose credibility is quite high because they didn't have to "go anywhere" to get to where the news was.

Not necessarily "beyond the capability" as simply requiring a person in the right place at the right time with a camera. If a major event happens near a blogger, then he or she can and often does perform the same work as any competent journalist. On the other hand, most people who are not already committed journalists have day jobs. If a story is not nearby, the average blogger can't even pick up the camera and run across town, let alone drive to another town or across multiple counties, at any reasonable (and some unreasonable) hour(s) of the day, to cover a story. A journalist can and often will do that, however.

Also, a small blogger who covers a large story may quickly find their server swamped or their hosting bills outrageously high, particularly if offering a lot of pictures, whereas a media agency will usually have the resources.

Eamon:

Was going to take you to task for your bogus reply to my previous post, but a couple of others beat me to it. Hope the kool-aid was tasty, or that the paycheck from your employers in the established media was worth it.

Girl Flip:

Yes, the blogosphere will in fact motivate professional journalists to do a better job. Political hacks employed as journalists - such as Mapes and RaTHer - will continue to say whatever furthers their agenda regardless of truth.

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