Blogs Become the Story

There was an interesting twist in the coverage of the Eason Jordan story yesterday, the first weekday since Jordan "resigned" (c'mon, does anyone really think he resigned??). The mainstream media (MSM from now on) was finally forced to report the story, but instead of reporting on what Jordan had said, both in Davos and in other locations, they chose to attack the blogs instead.

In what can only be described as a very surprising editorial from the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stevens (confirmed as the writer by Hugh Hewitt) took the blogs to task for reporting and keeping alive this story. The tone of the editorial was very much out of the norm for WSJ, and one has to wonder what Paul Gigot was thinking when he okayed it. Stevens was in fact present in Davos at the seminar where Jordan made his slanderous comments about the U.S. military, which makes his choice as editorial writer all that much more confusing. It appears that he might have a bit of a conflict of interest in this whole matter. It closes with this prickly message:

No doubt this point of view will get us described as part of the "mainstream media." But we'll take that as a compliment since we've long believed that these columns do in fact represent the American mainstream. We hope readers buy our newspaper because we make grown-up decisions about what is newsworthy, and what isn't.

Somebody's got a bit of an attitude.

The WSJ piece was one of many that took shots at the bloggers with all kinds of condescending language. So what's going on here? Why has the MSM decided to shoot the messenger?

It's really pretty simple...jealousy. The MSM has long been the sole source of news, both in terms of being able to report it as well as deciding what to report. The blogosphere has opened the door to thousands of journalists who may not have the fancy credentials, but who do have a thirst for the truth and will not put up with with an MSM snowjob. Granted, there are some real oddballs out there that will report anything as truth, but for the most part, the bloggers I read are more concerned with getting out the whole story rather than being politically correct and bowing to the all-knowing expertise of the MSM.

It's a new world and there will be some growing pains for the big boys.