Don't Be So Quick To Dismiss Blogosphere

Posted 8:33 p.m., Sept. 29, 2004

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Kevblog Note: What follows is my response to today's column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, in which veteran Twin Cities columnist Nick Coleman blasts bloggers for their lack of adherence to journalistic rules, and their lack of accountability. I agree with much of his critique, just as I agree with similar thoughts expressed in recent days by Washington Post columnist David Broder.

But their searing critiques of bloggers as a class is a bit misguided--at a minimum both men paint us with the same broad brush. That's what prompted my reply, which follows. But first, let me quote a relevant portion of Coleman's column.

Do bloggers have the credentials of real journalists? No. Bloggers are hobby hacks, the Internet version of the sad loners who used to listen to police radios in their bachelor apartments and think they were involved in the world.

Bloggers don't know about anything that happened before they sat down to share their every thought with the moon. Like graffiti artists, they tag the public square -- without editors, correction policies or community standards. And so their tripe is often as vicious as it is vacuous.

... We are not dealing with journalism, people. We are dealing with Internet chat rooms: sleazy and unreliable, with no accountability. Most bloggers are not fit to carry a reporter's notebook.

-- Nick Coleman,
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Sept. 29, 2004

Dear Mr. Coleman:

I am a blogger (http://www.featherly.com) and, like not a few other bloggers out there, I actually am a trained and experienced journalist. Contrary to your suggestion, I stringently maintain the same standards of my reporting when I compose my commentaries online or write pieces for regular media.

I urge you not to be so quick to paint the entire blogosphere too thickly with one giant broad brush.

In effect, my blog is a forum I've created for myself to put together editorial columns not unlike your own, because in my day job as a healthcare information technology magazine reporter, I don't have that opportunity, and because my day job only reflects a portion of my interests as a writer.

Surely, Mr. Coleman, you would not argue that only that tiny percentage of journalists lucky enough to be elevated to your vaunted position are worthy, to paraphrase your term, of carrying the critic's notebook?

I won't argue with you that many bloggers do not apply the high standards you demand and that I try to pursue, but neither am I alone among bloggers in reaching for that ring. Talking Points Memo belongs to a very talented journalist, Josh Marshall. David Frum from the National Journal, also is a blogger who holds himself to high ethical standards, as does Andrew Sullivan and the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin. Some of their blogs are attached to mainstream publications, others, like mine and Sullivan's, are not.

Do we bring a point of view? Yes. Do we do our own reporting? I do as much as possible, limiting though by no means eliminating commentary that is based strictly on news reports of the day. I think most of the best bloggers approach it that way. In a sense, we are the modern-day equivalent of the old muckraker George Seldes. Perhaps you also wouldn't have approved of his fiery newsletter, In Fact, which was sort of a primordial, old-media blog.

I think our readers understand what we represent. I personally want to be held to a high standard journalistically on my Web site, and my Discussion page reflects the fact that not everyone is in strict agreement with my views. I don't hide that, just as no newspaper would. Likewise, if I find an error, I correct it.

I try to find a fair-minded approximation of the truth, albeit a truth that anyone should take with a pinch of salt--just as they should when reading your column, or in reality any newspaper report--because I am guilty, along with all humans, of forging a truth that matches my views and prejudices. Fairness and honesty are the best anyone can shoot for, given the psychological filter that we all, journalists and otherwise, use to shape our reality.

I realize not everyone is doing this with the kind of discipline I try to bring to the task. Whatever blogger decided you were a rich man must be the brother of the guy who informed my girlfriend, a state Department of Revenue auditor, that her views betrayed her "privileged upbringing" (as the daughter of a Waseca factory worker, no less...). Turns out Pat Moynihan was wrong: Some people apparently feel that they are entitled to their own facts, as well as their own opinions. I don't.

I understand and respect your viewpoint, Mr. Coleman, and to some degree hold the same opinion. But I hope you, David Broder, and some of the other (forgive me) "old-media" folks who are--to some degree justifiably--wringing hands over the proliferation of blogs, also understand that wrecklessness isn't the whole game.

Without bloggers, to name just two examples, the Valerie Plame story and the Dan Rather story would have either died unnatural deaths or likely not have surfaced at all. We bloggers may be a mixed blessing, but we are a blessing in our way, nonetheless.

Thanks for the column.

-- Kevin Featherly

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