southsider2k5 Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 All about bloggers Beware and resist the ego-gratifying pack that contributes only snark, sass and destruction Kathleen Parker, a syndicated columnist for the Orlando Sentinel, a Tribune newspaper: Tribune Media Services Published December 29, 2005 Of all the stories leading America's annual greatest-hits list, the one that subsumes the rest is the continuing evolution of information in the Age of Blogging. Not since the birth of the printing press have our lives been so dramatically affected by the way we create and consume information--both to our enormous benefit and, perhaps, to our growing peril. What is wonderful and miraculous about the Internet needs little elaboration. We all marvel at the ease with which we can access information--whether reading government documents previously available only to a few or tracking down old friends and new enemies. It is this latter--our new enemies--that interests me most. I don't mean Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden, but the less visible, insidious enemies of decency, humanity and civility--the angry offspring of narcissism's quickie marriage to instant gratification. There's something frankly creepy about the explosion we now call the Blogosphere--the big-bang "electroniverse" where recently wired squatters set up new camps each day. As I write, the number of blogs (Web logs) and bloggers (those who blog) is estimated in the tens of millions worldwide. Although I've been a blog fan since the beginning, and have written favorably about the value added to journalism and public knowledge thanks to the new "citizen journalist," I'm also wary of power untempered by restraint and accountability. Say what you will about the so-called mainstream media, but no industry agonizes more about how to improve its product, police its own members and better serve its communities. Newspapers are filled with carpal-tunneled wretches, overworked and underpaid, who suffer near-pathological allegiance to getting it right. That a Jayson Blair of The New York Times or a Jack Kelley of USA Today surfaces now and then as a plagiarist or a fabricator ultimately is testament to the high standards tens of thousands of others strive to uphold each day without recognition. Blair and Kelley are infamous, but they're also gone. Bloggers persist no matter their contributions or quality, though most would have little to occupy their time were the mainstream media to disappear tomorrow. Some bloggers do their own reporting, but most rely on mainstream reporters to do the heavy lifting. Some bloggers also offer superb commentary, but most babble, buzz and blurt like caffeinated adolescents competing for the Ritalin generation's inevitable senior superlative: Most Obsessive-Compulsive. Even so, they hold the same megaphone as the adults and enjoy perceived credibility owing to membership in the larger world of blog grown-ups. These effete and often clever baby "bloggies" are rich in time and toys but bereft of adult supervision. Spoiled and undisciplined, they have grabbed the mike and seized the stage, a privilege granted not by years in the trenches, but by virtue of a three-pronged plug and the miracle of WiFi. They play tag team with hyperlinks ("I'll say you're important if you'll say I'm important") and shriek "Gotcha!" when they catch some weary wage earner in a mistake or oversight. Plenty smart but lacking in wisdom, they possess the power of a forum, but neither the maturity nor humility that years of experience impose. Each time I wander into blogdom, I'm reminded of the savage children stranded on an island in William Golding's "Lord of the Flies." Without adult supervision, they organize themselves into rival tribes, learn to hunt and kill, and eventually become murderous barbarians in the absence of a civilizing structure. What Golding demonstrated--and what we're witnessing as the Blogosphere's offspring multiply--is that people tend to abuse power when it is unearned and will bring down others to enhance themselves. Likewise, many bloggers seek the destruction of others for their own self-aggrandizement. When a mainstream journalist stumbles, they pile on like so many savages, hoisting his or her head on a bloody stick as Golding's children did the fly-covered head of a butchered sow. Schadenfreude--pleasure in others' misfortunes--has become the new barbarity on an island called Blog. When someone trips, whether Dan Rather or Eason Jordan or Judith Miller, bloggers are the bloodthirsty masses slavering for a public flogging. Incivility is their weapon and humanity their victim. I mean no disrespect to the many brilliant people out there--professors, lawyers, doctors, philosophers, scientists and other journalists who also happen to blog. Again, they know who they are. But we should beware and resist the rest of the ego-gratifying rabble who contribute only snark, sass and destruction. We can't silence them, but for civilization's sake--and the integrity of information by which we all live or die--we can and should ignore them. ---------- E-mail: kparker@kparker.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 A bloggity response... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rex Kickass Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 I read Daily Kos but less and less, otherwise really just follow my close friend's LJs and tvnewser, gothamist, fluxblog and occasionally CTA tattler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCSox Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 Unfortunately, networks like MSNBC legitimize their crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rex Kickass Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 What are you, Bill O'Reilly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southsider2k5 Posted December 30, 2005 Author Share Posted December 30, 2005 QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Dec 30, 2005 -> 03:50 PM) I read Daily Kos but less and less, otherwise really just follow my close friend's LJs and tvnewser, gothamist, fluxblog and occasionally CTA tattler. PurgatorywithPantagraphs>CTAtattler My reaction to the article was that Kathleen Parker must be about the most insecure person in the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCSox Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Dec 30, 2005 -> 01:52 PM) What are you, Bill O'Reilly? Um, no, but I agree with him on that issue. Why should bloggers, who are not held to any journalistic standards, be featured on legitimate news shows? (That's "who," not "what," BTW.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rex Kickass Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 Bloggers influence stories on every other network. So what? I just figured between your hate on AAR and MSNBC, you might be Bill O'Reilly. After all they seem to be pet enemies of him. If you think there's a war on Christmas - I might just be convinced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCSox Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 (edited) QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Dec 30, 2005 -> 02:08 PM) Bloggers influence stories on every other network. So what? I just figured between your hate on AAR and MSNBC, you might be Bill O'Reilly. After all they seem to be pet enemies of him. If you think there's a war on Christmas - I might just be convinced. Bloggers don't influence stories on networks as much as you think... unless they're given air time, of course. AAR and MSNBC aren't important enough to "hate." And Bill O'Reilly is on vacation right now, so I doubt that he'd be talking to you. Since you love AAR and "Countdown," you must be Keith Olbermann, right? :rolly Edited December 30, 2005 by WCSox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southsider2k5 Posted December 30, 2005 Author Share Posted December 30, 2005 Why does it seem like we have been down this road before.... hmmm.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heads22 Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 Since I'm a blogger and a media member, what does that make me? Some sort of transvestite journalist? Man, there's got to be a better way to phrase that.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 QUOTE(Heads22 @ Dec 30, 2005 -> 01:57 PM) Man, there's got to be a better way to phrase that.... Nope. Absolutely perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KipWellsFan Posted December 31, 2005 Share Posted December 31, 2005 The civilian media is here to stay! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted January 2, 2006 Share Posted January 2, 2006 I think of bloggers like I think of letters to the editor and posts here. There are precious few that have any more or less legitamacy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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