Who Can Really Say?

It's Just People Talking

There's been tons of stuff today in the wake of Eason Jordan's resignation. Which I won't link to 'cause it's late and I'm lazy. Except for this from Jay Rosen, who can't figure out why Jordan resigned, which is another way of saying "We still don't know what the story is." Very thoughtful and well worth the read.

But what strikes me about folks trying to figure out what this blogosphere thing is and what it means and where it will take us is how much they miss the point. (Rosen doesn't fall into this trap). What are blogs? Just people talking. That's it. People have always talked, of course. Before blogs, we talked at the water cooler, both the literal and proverbial ones. We talked over lunch with co-workers, and over the fence with neighbors. We talked at the bar, and in the stands at kids soccer games. And that's all blogs are -- talk.

It isn't all that hard to find blogs where people talk about all of the things they talked about before (and still do) at water coolers, bars, fences, and soccer games. Movies, music, books, kids, family, work, sports, hobbies and other interests. And politics of course. The only difference is that blogs expand the conversation. Where the MSM is concerned, there are two implications.

The first is that blogs can identify a story more quickly than MSM. Exhibit A is Trent Lott, and Exhibit B is Eason Jordan. Was it significant that Trent Lott lauded Strom Thurmond on his 100th birthday by suggesting that had the rest of the country voted for Thurmond as Mississippi did in 1948, it would have been a good thing? When Thurmond was running on an pro-segreatation platform? Not to the MSM. Was it significant that Jordan had again repeated outrageous accusations that US troops killed journalists on purpose, and then couldn't credibly back off from them? Not to the MSM. But it was to people talking. Now of course, even if the MSM could overhear those conversations at the water cooler, bar, fence or whatever it wouldn't do them any good because in themselves they're only anecdotal. But in an electronic conversation they become more than that.

The second implication is that compounding the first, blogs can identify factual errors in the MSM. When they get it wrong, as they often enough do, people will talk about it. Before blogs, they talked about it at water coolers, lunch, the fence, the bar, the soccer game, etc. Drop a pebble in a small pool and the ripples only go so far. But blogs are a great body of water. The ripples go much further.

Now, it isn't hard to have a conversation with someone who plainly doesn't know much of what they're talking about, or who in any case doesn't have much interesting to say, and it isn't hard to find a blog that fits either bill. The MSM's defense seems to be that bloggers don't know what they're talking about, or perhaps more accurately, can't be trusted to know what they're talking about. But blog entries aren't the end for a journalist -- they're the beginning. They're a new source of material and research for a journalist, not the end of journalism. Until the MSM learns that lesson, they'll stay behind the curve.

More here.

But now this particular pigeon has come home to roost. The media's credibility with the American public has been on the decline for years, but what Nixon called the "Silent majority" really was silent. They lacked the media megaphone to which journalists had access and so there was no one to challenge the media's hegemonic control of the culture.

It's just people talking. Why won't they listen?

Posted by Peter at February 14, 2005 10:29 PM