Blogs

I decided give blogging a go. Sure, I have a few domains I manage but a blogging is a little different. One difference is the publishing. I chose to try Blogger just because of the ease of publishing. In other words, it looks easy. Blogger is owned by Google, a search engine I try not to use. Every time I hear someone use 'Google' as a verb I cringe. Do we really want one company to monopolize how the Web is searched? I prefer Yahoo!

Anyway, some debate has ensued over bloggers due to their role in the 2004 election and their role in exposing Dan Rather's attempt to show some Microsoft Word documents as proof of George W. Bush's lack of commitment to his National Guard duty in the early 1970's.

Some claim bloggers are not legitimate journalists. I ask, then, what makes a legitimate journalist? Working at a company that has a printing press the size of a small house? Working for an entity that has a call letter beginning with a 'W' or a 'K?'

If newspaper reporters and TV anchorman say something is true should be believe them? Are they less likely to tilt the truth or spin an opinion then a blogger?

An example: if I go to a local public meeting, and the events at this meeting are covered and published by a newspaper reporter, we tend to believe it, right? If I go to the same meeting and publish a story on my blog about it, do people believe it? Maybe. They might believe the newspaper account as accurate. People might think that, as a blogger, I am putting my own personal spin on the story. How do we know the newspaper reporter is not doing the same? We don't.¹

What I think is happening is that people see something on the Web and now they realize just because it's on the Web, doesn't mean it's true. However, that thinking has now trickled down to the TV newscasts and newspapers. If it's published or reported by a stuffed shirt, people are beginning to realize it may not always be true. The big news companies are beginning to worry about this and will lobby Congress more aggressively to monitor the bloggers.

We must remember that Freedom of the Press cannot exist without Freedom of Speech yet both are intertwined. A restriction on one is certainly a restriction on the other. People have the right to find out any information about any political candidate at any time; be it two weeks, or two minutes before we cast our vote.

As a people, we need to preserve the right to search the truth and expose inconsistencies, be they from the government or from CBS News. Blogging will enable us to do so. Intelligent people are able to gather news from the press and from blogs and decide what is true and what is false.

That's all for now.

Back to Google, here are some links:

http://www.google-watch.org
http://oak.psych.gatech.edu/~epic/

For the latter, it requires Flash.



Brian


1. However, many people think that the only reporters capable of spinning a story work for Fox News while totally discounting the possibility that reporters for other news stations cannot ever spin a story to the left. This is a two-way street, people.