Never have I seen so many tiny penises erect over the "power of the blogosphere." You'd think that they'd all just gotten lucky with Neal Kozody or something. Our President utters lies on a regular basis. Our government, whether guided by Democrats or Republicans, prevaricates more on a single day than any average Joe does in a week. Failing that, there's the whole issue of human error. Which happens from time to time. Yes, even from journalists. So you're going to tear a news executive a new one for fucking up? Well, fair is fair. Let the bastards have it.
But don't come crying to me when you're declared an inveterate amateur. Or your subjective bias is so out of control that it kills your credibility.
It must be easy for a blogger to delude himself into the idea that he's an "investigative journalist" or a "pundit" when he's never set foot in Iraq, or he hasn't bothered to talk to an actual soldier. How comforting it is cling to half-hearted speculations when he could be going out into the field asking questions (much as the bloggers failed to do at the conventions last year), or comparing several perspectives of what went down at an event.
Eason Jordan screwed up. That goes without saying. But Jeff Jarvis is full of shit if he thinks that "everyone" has access to the policies and the confidential memos or that the power has somehow shifted to the people or that bloggers control all the cards. It was Eason Jordan who made the decision to resign, not the bloggers. For all we know, there could have been peripheral reasons. The burnout factor that comes with almost a quarter century of looking human horror straight in the eye. As a man who considers CNN to be a form of journalistic pornography, I still have to ask: Did any of these magnificent geniuses on the blogosphere consider actually getting Jordan's take on the resignation?
Or perhaps it's as simple as this: If you think you can run with the big dogs, then you probably haven't stayed on the proch long enough with the pups.
Posted by DrMabuse at February 14, 2005 12:35 AM