The Forth Estate continues it’s assault on citizen media, or as it is commonly known as; The Blogosphere.
It seems that Paul Mulshine of the Newark Star Ledger is coming out swinging against us. However, instead of sounding like a legit reporter, he comes off sounding more like grumpy old man, full of sour grapes.
Of course, Glenn Reynolds, the Conservative Blogosphere’s God Father is having none of it. Glenn Says something that I totally agree with here:
That, of course — as Mulshine should have known then, and now — is exactly what J.D. Johannes does — along with Michael Yon, Michael Totten, Bill Roggio, and others in the blogosphere. Mulshine, meanwhile, brags about having once covered the Toms River Regional Board of Education in New Jersey. That’s worthy work, of course, but if his reportage there was as poor as his work in the Wall Street Journal, then — oh, who am I kidding? “If”?
Anyway, it’s certainly true that bloggers as a class are more competition for careless pundits like Mulshine than for go-getter reporters who find out things that people don’t know, and report them truthfully. It’s also true that those go-getter reporters who put the truth first are pretty scarce in the world of Big Media reporting, and that management shows no sign of wanting more of them, and many signs of wanting attitude-mongers like, well, Mulshine. This is, as I’ve noted before, a dumb business strategy, which explains in part why newspapers are doing so badly.
The awesome thing about the Blogosphere is this. We Bloggers; Yes, I do mean Conservative and Liberal, keep the press and Washington D.C. and dare I even say it? The White House honest. Gone are the days of the Nixon era, when you could pull the preverbal wool over the eyes of the American people. Bloggers are there, pointing out the half truths, lies and outright distortions.
Need I remind anyone, that it was the Liberal Blogosphere and the Libertarian and Paleo-Conservative Blogosphere, that basically pointed out the fact that George W. Bush was, quite frankly, full of crap, when he tried to say that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Something that the Republican Blogging world is still to acknowledge to this very day. Even after the White House is fully conceded that fact. This was well before the time that the Main Stream Media even tried to start questioning the tactics of the Bush Administration.
So, basically, either the Forth Estate can learn to work with us or die. But the way things are looking, they’d rather die first. This might just be a good thing.
Others: Jules Crittenden, Wake up America, The Other McCain, Ed Driscoll.com and Fausta’s Blog