From Clash to Civilization

8 thoughts on From Clash to Civilization

1. Mike Allen was actually in a class of mine last week talking about this very topic. But I don’t remember what he said, because I think I just tune out now whenever anyone brings up the blogs/MSM debate. Not that you and him and the others on the panel won’t have interesting and nuanced things to say about it — it sounds from the questions you asked like it’s a much more holistic look at the issue. But normally when people ask that question, it’s like, “why do blogs hate the MSM? or “why do journlists hate bloggers?” and it just turns into a lame oversimplistic debate. One of my pet peeves is when people speak about “blogs” in relation to the MSM as if blogs are just some monolithic thing. I want to scream at them, “What kind of blogs do you mean?” There are diary blogs and blogs that provide witty/snarky commentary on things in politics or the media and advocacy blogs and blogs that are simply link farms and corporate blogs and campaign blogs and blogs where people actually do their own jouralistic-style reporting and investigating and blogs written by academics to showcase their work and blogs full of economic analysis or philosophy or political punditry and blogs where people are just trying to be funny …. what blogs do you mean, exactly?

2. The MSM has a big problem: political blogs call their legitimacy into question. Their legitimacy depends on two basic ideas: that they report the news authoritatively, and that they report it dispassionately. Taking the second one first, many blogs question the media even more than the political leaders and take as their principal purpose calling into question the MSM’s objectivity. I’m not just talking Somersby, I’m talking about Atrios, who is pretty damned high profile. In fact, “unbiased” is impossible, and the MSM are structurally resistant to recognizing their own bias so they can’t be bias-transparent. As long as they pretend to be unbiased and the blogs are bias-transparent, blogs will undercut the MSM’s narrative that it is unbiased and therefore call its dispassion into question.

   Also, the claim to be authoritative depends in part on being unbiased, i.e. that the editorial selection and analysis are without distortion; but also they depend on the notion that the MSM have resources that bloggers don’t (which is true); that those resources are necessary to get the “real story” (which is sometimes true); and that these resources do not themselves distort the narrative (which is untrue). The MSM pay to have people in the the WH briefing room and in bureaus, and they pay for star reporters like Woodward and Miller. With that comes “access,” but access brings a structural bias: that the more highly placed the source is, the more valuable their information. In fact, it comes with more strings attached– they know more, but they also have more agenda and more ability to spin reporters than the folks with their nose in the dirt. And access means pleasing sources. When was the last time an MSM reporter burned a source, saying, “Secretary ___ has been telling reporters around town off the record that ___ for weeks, but this is not true. In fact, people in his own department say …” (Jack Shafer has campaigned for burning lying anonymice, without apparent result). In fact, getting the access means telling a story that, if not a parroted version of the spin, at least does not blow up on the source, which constrains the accuracy of the story. Also, developing access often means sharing a worldview with the sources. Judith Miller had all the access in the world, but she got the story dramatically wrong. She got the access she had by drinking the Kool Aid. She couldn’t undrink it and take a critical stance when necessary.

   Blogs can’t replace the news, but they also can’t help but critique it by their very existence. The reason for the animosity is structural and not easily remedied.

3. Originally, for me, the blogosphere held some promise of creating a more active media, and the chance that such media could be used to persuade as well as educate. My primary concern over the last year or so is that there is no real concerted effort to educate or persuade others to change their minds or to alter their opinions and political beliefs. I have seen more blog inclusiveness – every blog preaching to its own constituency.

   One of the questions above I find interesting is “Who should set the media’s agenda?” One of the glories of the internet has always seemed that I can avoid a particular agenda and only concentrate on topics and political or philosophical discussions that I find interesting. The large amount of content available allows me to only read or digest stories that I find interesting. Which also seems to be a feedback loop on the point of my first paragraph – that we aren’t really persuading anyone new – only preaching to the choir.

   Also, to be honest, does anybody besides my grandparents really pay attention to the MSM. It seems pretty outdated in a strange sort of way. Maybe it is just because I have an aversion to the evening news and cable news, and would rather just read a book. Just a thought.

4. An important thing to remember about blogs, is that political blogs are a very small, but highly read minority of the blogging world. And likewise, while much has been said about media consolidation, it’s foolish to talk about the MSM as monolithic as well. (Does the MSM include In These Times, Democracy Now, community radio and “alternative” weeklies?)

   The basic problem is that while I see plenty of bluff, bluster and opinion from blogs about the moribund nature of the MSM, most political blog entires are derivative of the MSM view of the world, using the MSM as their primary sources of information. Writing five paragraphs on the pundit outrage du jour isn’t an alternative, it’s not even activism.

5. And perhaps part of it is that I can claim the title of “old internet fart” having seen the evolution of this kind of discourse from dial-up BBS though LISTSERV, MAJORDOMO, and usenet, citidels, bitnet and muds, saw the photos of Shumaker-Levy on the early web, and feel qualified to answer the “Web 2.0” bullshit with “wasn’t it always about people and community?” And I hate to say it, but the political blog isn’t that far removed from the usenet screed circa 1990.

   Are there alternatives? Certainly, I consider Astronomy Cast an excellent example of an alternative way to do science news. Rather than just deliver, “they discovered this,” Pamela Gay is willing to say, “well, here is the evidence to support this, but there is evidence pending that will support that.” Her coverage goes beyond the usual treatment of milking column inches out of press releases.

6. Which conventional criticisms of blogs and the MSM are valid and why?
   I’ve pretty much left the MSM behind, except for local news, sports, traffic and weather, and I’ve become a huge blog fan. The one criticism I do think is valid, though, is the sort of circle jerkiness that sometimes happens. Not that the same thing doesn’t occur with the MSM, of course– witness today’s O’Hanlon/Pollack/Cheney lovefest– I just wish the “So-and-so said this today and I couldn’t agree more” posts could be kept to a minimum. Other than that, I read the blogs first and check the papers second now. Have fun with Greenwald! I think he’s terrific.

7. Perdue Attorney: Also, to be honest, does anybody besides my grandparents really pay attention to the MSM. It seems pretty outdated in a strange sort of way. Maybe it is just because I have an aversion to the evening news and cable news, and would rather just read a book. Just a thought.

   Feministe currently has links to the NYT and Salon. The front page of Pandagon and Kos tends to run 80% MSM (and not just MSM, big consolidated MSM). If you are getting your information from political blogs, you are still feeding from the MSM trough.

8. CBrachyrhynchos wrote:

   “Feministe currently has links to the NYT and Salon. The front page of Pandagon and Kos tends to run 80% MSM (and not just MSM, big consolidated MSM). If you are getting your information from political blogs, you are still feeding from the MSM trough.”

   That is a good point I didn’t consider.

   However, to be honest, I am much more concerned about the philosophical movements and commitments that I identify with, rather than political concerns. I guess my point being that I am rarely persuaded by, or really informed by, the MSM. However, I am very interested in such things as barometers of the culture (i.e. philosophical commitments and ideas are currently being held by the MSM and portions of the public).

   There is also a difference between commenting on the MSM and drawing large amounts of information from the MSM.

   Also, I tend to struggle with the concept of the MSM. It strikes me as more of a macrostructuralist argument, which I think is difficult to maintain (although I often fall into this trap). The MSM is probably similar to most markets, where the appearance of uniformity of prices is created by autonomous actions of millions of participants. Kind of an Austrian School of Economics analysis of the MSM.

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