Finally, A Journalist Who Likes Blogs

Since blogs became a big news item during the Rathergate mess (that's when this blog got started), many of the mainstream journalism "stars" have expressed various levels of disgust for this new medium. After all, bloggers are just a bunch of amateurs sitting around in their pajamas venting their spleen on the Internet, or so the MSM wanted to think.

Ralph Kinney Bennett is not one of those journalists who loathe the blogs. He's written a great piece on TechCentralStation.com about how much he loves the blogs and thinks they're the best thing ever to happen to journalism. In fact he has this to say about the MSM reaction to the blogs:

Pompous journalists are disdainful of blogs because they feel threatened by them. They are like members of the Raccoon Lodge and the bloggers just barreled into the ritual room and tore open the curtains and they all look slightly ridiculous in their epaulets and tin pot hats and braided swallowtail coats.

I think what really teed off the MSM is that their little secret was revealed - you don't really have to have any special training to be a journalist. As Mr. Bennett puts it:

It's easy to be a journalist.

It's hard to be a good journalist.

It's easy because you really don't have to pass professional muster like a lawyer or a doctor or an accountant. If you're curious, have reasonable intelligence and some aptitude for writing, there's nothing about the "mechanics" of the thing that you can't learn on the job in a matter of months.

It's hard to be a good journalist because, well, it's hard. You have to work hard to be honest to your readers, to the facts, to the difficulty of panning for truth in a torrent of information.

Will Mr. Bennett's attitude spread throughout the MSM? I doubt it. There will always be those who feel that they have been touched from on high to spread the truth as they see it, and will never abide the thought that some guy in his living room watching NASCAR might have a better or more accurate take on the subject than he does. In other words, there will always be the elitists in journalism who dare not be challenged.

However, blogs are here to stay. This "open source" journalism is a great thing. With a few clicks of the mouse you can through as many different opinions as you wish, and when the MSM writes something silly or just plain wrong (see LA Times and North Korea), the bloggers will rise up in full fury to point out the error of the MSM ways. I think in the long run the MSM will be forced to be much more careful about what they print or broadcast.

As they say, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but no one is entitled to their own facts.