Just what is it about us bloggers that has the mainstream media practically wetting their underpants in recent days? When even syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, a self-described fan of blogging since at least 2003, has turned on us, you know something has gone terribly wrong.
From her July 13, 2003 column entitled Blogs breaking logjam of journalism, Parker writes:
As a regular visitor to a dozen or so news and opinion blogs, I'm riveted by the implications for my profession. Bloggers are making life interesting for reluctant mainstreamers like myself and for the public, whose access to information until now has been relatively controlled by traditional media.How does Parker feel today, you might ask? From her December 28, 2005 column Lord of the blogs Parker writes:
...what I once loved about journalism went missing some time ago and seems to have resurfaced as the driving force of the blogosphere: a high-spirited, irreverent, swashbuckling, lances-to-the-ready assault on the status quo.
What is wonderful and miraculous about the Internet needs little elaboration. We all marvel at the ease with which we can access information - whether reading government documents previously available only to a few, or tracking down old friends and new enemies.Wow...from being lauded as high-spirited challengers of the status quo to being cursed as insidious enemies of humanity on a level somewhere just below Osama bin Laden in only about 2-1/2 years. When someone falls out of favor with Kathleen Parker, they really fall.
It is this latter - our new enemies - that interests me most. I don't mean al-Qaida or Osama bin Laden, but the less visible, insidious enemies of decency, humanity and civility - the angry offspring of narcissism's quickie marriage to instant gratification.
Continuing to compare her two columns, it becomes clearly evident that Ms Parker has long since passed the googly-eyed puppy-love stage in her relationship with the blogosphere and is now deeply entrenched in the "Get your crap out of my house!" breaking-up stage.
Back when she still had those magical feelings for us, she proudly proclaimed:
While mainstream journalists are tucked inside their newsroom cubicles deciphering management's latest "tidy desk" memo, bloggers are building bonfires and handing out virtual leaflets along America's Information Highway...Today, after finding our dirty clothes strewn all over the bedroom floor every day for over two years Parker spits:
...The view from my bunker suggests that blogs can't be anything but good for journalism. Just as a new restaurant is good for established ones, competition is good. And fun! As another famous cowboy recently put it, "Bring `em on!"
Some bloggers do their own reporting, but most rely on mainstream reporters to do the heavy lifting. Some bloggers also offer superb commentary, but most babble, buzz and blurt like caffeinated adolescents competing for the Ritalin generation's inevitable senior superlative: Most Obsessive-Compulsive.Even those little quirks of ours that she used to find endearing:
Even so, they hold the same megaphone as the adults and enjoy perceived credibility owing to membership in the larger world of blog grown-ups.
The best bloggers, who are generous in linking to one another -alien behavior to journalists accustomed to careerist, shark-tank newsrooms -are like smart, hip gunslingers come to make trouble for the local good ol' boys.She now finds them crass and annoying:
They play tag team with hyperlinks ("I'll say you're important if you'll say I'm important) and shriek "Gotcha!" when they catch some weary wage earner in a mistake or oversight. Plenty smart but lacking in wisdom, they possess the power of a forum, but neither the maturity nor humility that years of experience impose.So, just what did we do to deserve such a heartless and insulting "Dear John" letter? Alas, I think our relationship was doomed from the start. At the close of her 2003 love letter, Parker tipped her hand:
...the blogosphere still ain't a newspaper. You can't hold the blogosphere in your hands. You can't feel a blog, smell it, fold it, hand it across the breakfast table or throw it down in a rage. You can't cut out stories and strawberry them to the fridge, line the birdcage, swat flies, house-train the puppy or wrap fish in it.She never really loved us. Sure, she thought we were cute and cuddly for a while...but her heart has always belonged to another, and she let us know that today:
In the end, a blog is just a blog, but a newspaper -cradled caffeinated in a morning lap curled barefoot into the seat of a porch rocker -is a read.
Say what you will about the so-called mainstream media, but no industry agonizes more about how to improve its product, police its own members and better serve its communities. Newspapers are filled with carpal-tunneled wretches, overworked and underpaid, who suffer near-pathological allegiance to getting it right.And, her final parting shot at us:
We can't silence them, but for civilization's sake - and the integrity of information by which we all live or die - we can and should ignore them.Ignore us now, if you must, Kathleen, but I will continue to take your words from two years ago to heart. Everytime I need to line the birdcage, swat a fly, house-train the puppy or wrap a fish, I'm going to reach for the nearest newspaper...and think of you.
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