Fraters Libertas

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?

On the day that Dan Rather shuffles off stage, the Star Tribune's Eric Black reports that in new era of reporting, blogs take a seat at the media table:

But Rather's departure also symbolizes the rise of a new player in the world of media and politics that was not even a glimmer in a science-fiction writer's imagination when Rather first took the anchor's chair: the Internet phenomenon known as the blogosphere.

Blogs, especially the Twin Cities-based Power Line, may have helped hasten Rather's retirement by eviscerating documents on which Rather relied for a story about President Bush's National Guard service.

"May have helped?" Gee, ya think?

Black also notes that the Strib is in the cross hairs:

Some blogs have embraced a role of influencing traditional media coverage. A prominent blogger recently proposed that conservatives should scrutinize the Star Tribune in a bloggish tactic called "swarming," which is what happened to Rather after his Bush National Guard story.

I prefer to think of Hugh as a blogger with prominent features.

Radio host Hugh Hewitt recently announced on HughHewitt.com that he had reserved the Web address "swarmingthestrib.com" and proposed that bloggers from across the country agree to jointly post "a daily digest of commentary on the lapses in objectivity and the flights of lefty fancy that the paper daily indulges."

The reaction to the "Stribswarm" trial balloon that Hugh floated last week has been interesting to observe. Most local bloggers downplayed the idea of a broad based attack on everything that the paper does. We prefer to pick out well deserving targets and direct our media criticism accordingly. It's more a sharp shooter approach rather than a shotgun blast.

Mitch Berg, a Twin Cities-based blogger (shotinthedark.info) said the local allies of Hewitt, known as the Northern Alliance, have decided that there is already so much Star Tribune criticism being posted by local bloggers -- notably on anti-strib.blogspot.com -- that "there's no need to start a formal site to do this."

We also know that while Hugh is an enormously talented gentleman and scholar, he is prone to flights of fancy of his own. A few weeks ago he was lobbying to be named California's Secretary of State (albeit temporarily). On Monday of this week, he spent a good chunk of his radio show pimping to be named the next President of the University of Colorado. Hugh throws up a lot of things during a week of blogging and doing three hours of radio a day. Some of them stick, some don't.

Apparently the only people who really took Hugh's "Stribswarm" idea seriously were local media types like the City Pages, the Air America affiliate here in the Twin Cities, and the Strib.

Star Tribune Editor Anders Gyllenhaal said it was clear from Hewitt's posting that he doesn't read the paper, but he said the editors welcome constructive criticism. "If someone can find a new way of enlightening readers, then my attitude is: the more the merrier," Gyllenhaal said.

Ah, nice to see that the tone of condescending arrogance hasn't disappeared from the mainstream media yet.

And, as it seems all stories on blogs must, Black includes a warning of the dark side of "new media":

The rise of radio stations, cable shows and blogs that are reliably liberal or conservative has caused some to worry that citizens will choose a steady diet of news and views that coincide with their own preferences.

Which of course is worse than being fed a steady diet of news from a newspaper that is reliably liberal without having any choice in the matter at all. Sigh. Those were the days. Good times, good times.

Of course it might help if your premise about the dangerous isolation and extremism fostered by blogs were actually supported by fact:

Rainie, of the Pew Internet project, said that the possibility that blogs will make it easier for people to "retreat into their own info bubbles, screen out conflicting arguments and become ever more extreme in their views is absolutely one of the major concerns" of those who study the blogosphere.

But so far, it doesn't seem to be happening, Rainie said. When Pew studied the question during the 2004 election, it found that Internet users were more likely than other Americans to be aware of a variety of facts and arguments, including those that challenged their preferred candidates or issue positions.

Imagine that. Bloggers and their readers being better read and versed in matters of the day than other Americans. Who would have thunk it?

More from Mitch, Power Line, SwanBlog, Bogus Gold, and Craig Westover.