They SOOOO Don’t Get It (Blog and Mainstream Media “Accuracy”)
Yesterday’s Enquirer (HT Porkopolis) had a misnamed article by Malia Rulon called “Blogs test campaign freedoms” (really should have been titled “People Who Don’t Like Blogs Test Campaign Freedoms”). It managed to ignore almost all of the center-right blogs, plus a certain daily chronicle, that had an impact on the 2nd Congressional District election result in August (congrats to Project Logic for at least slipping through and getting on to the list of local blogs–what’s your secret?).
File this quote from the article under “you don’t know what’s good for you” (bold is mine):
Joe Braun, campaign manager for Republican U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt of Miami Township in Clermont County, who narrowly beat Democrat Paul Hackett in the 2nd District race, said blogs also are being used by campaigns to spread attacks. “Blogs sometimes communicate messages that the campaigns don’t want to bring up in the mainstream press,” Braun said, adding that online messages should be held to the same standards of accuracy as print media.
You must mean, Joe. that it’s OK if we’re:
- this pervasively sloppy and inaccurate?
- this twisting?
- this heavily filtered?
- this one-sided?
- this deceptive?
- this conflicted (without disclosure)?
- and this unwilling to acknowledge and/or correct mistakes?
Geez, we’re home-free. Most of us in the blogosphere couldn’t perform as poorly as the The Mainstream Media has performed in the past few years if we tried, and those that could don’t want to.
As to the central issue of the article, Federal Election Commission regulation of blogs–The FEC can come after blogs after it addresses the complete mess known as The Mainstream Media. Since they won’t do that, they should leave us the hell alone.
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UPDATE: Matt at WMD notes: “No mention at all of the left/right coalition to fight the FEC on regulation of blogs either.”
I received an email from Malia Rulon concerning this article. She explained what she was going for and asked how she could get in touch with me. There appeared to be no follow up, however.
I didn’t even know the article was published, or that my blog was mentioned, until I read your post.
Comment by Eric Kephas — October 4, 2005 @ 6:37 pm
Cincinnati Enquirer: What conservative blogs?
The Cincinnati Enquirer has an article up about political blogging that seems to be bothering a number of the online contributors, especially those right-of-center.
… It’s fair to mention that before this article went up, I received an e-mail from…
Trackback by Project LOGIC — October 4, 2005 @ 7:13 pm