Yet Another Misguided Attack on the Blogosphere
I left town for a few days to hang with family, committed to the fact that I wouldn’t blog, but a little piece I read in the Wall Street Journal made my hiatus a brief one. Joseph Rago, an Assistant Editorial Features Editor at the WSJ, penned an article titled “The Blog Mob - Written by Fools to be Read by Imbiciles.” Needless to say, I don’t think Joe and I are going bowling and throwing back a few any time soon, but that’s ok. But what’s not ok is the sorely misinformed perspective reflected by Joe in his missive, and the swipe he takes at an entire class of media that, to be sure, poses a serious threat to he and his peers in print media. And while my blog post will largely be clinical in its analysis of Joe’s twisted and defensive logic, I am more than irritated at having been classified as a “fool” and my many readers labeled as “imbiciles.” Especially since I know this to be untrue on both counts. And I’d be happy to engage Joe in a “brain off” any time he wants. And I am sure most if not all of my readers would rise to this challenge as well.
So, where to begin? I’ve highlighted some of Mr. Rago’s more salient and debatable points below, which should serve as a good starting point. From my imbicilic perspective, it appears to me that Joe’s view is rooted in orthodoxy, that he has taken a narrow view of the strengths and weaknesses of blogs, and is just plain wrong in his perceptions about the power of group debate and it’s ability to arrive at the right conclusion. But please, take a read for yourself.
********************
The blogs are not as significant
as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism
requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital
age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead,
they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks,
picking at the scraps.
More success is met in purveying
opinion and comment. Some critics reproach the blogs for the coarsening
and increasing volatility of political life. Blogs, they say, tend to
disinhibit. Maybe so. But politics weren’t much rarefied when Andrew
Jackson was president, either. The larger problem with blogs, it seems
to me, is quality. Most of them are pretty awful. Many, even some with
large followings, are downright appalling.
Every conceivable belief is on the
scene, but the collective prose, by and large, is homogeneous: A tone
of careless informality prevails; posts oscillate between the uselessly
brief and the uselessly logorrheic; complexity and complication are
eschewed; the humor is cringe-making, with irony present only in its
conspicuous absence; arguments are solipsistic; writers traffic more in
pronouncement than persuasion …********************
The right now is partially
a function of technology, which makes instantaneity possible, and also
a function of a culture that valorizes the up-to-the-minute above all
else. But there is no inherent virtue to instantaneity. Traditional
daily reporting—the news—already rushes ahead at a pretty good clip,
breakneck even, and suffers for it. On the Internet all this is
accelerated.
The blogs must be timely if they are to influence politics. This element—here’s my opinion—is necessarily modified and partly determined by the right now.
Instant response, with not even a day of delay, impairs rigor. It is
also a coagulant for orthodoxies. We rarely encounter sustained or
systematic blog thought—instead, panics and manias; endless
rehearsings of arguments put forward elsewhere; and a tendency to
substitute ideology for cognition. The participatory Internet, in
combination with the hyperlink, which allows sites to interrelate,
appears to encourage mobs and mob behavior.********************
Nobody wants to be an imbecile.
Part of it, I think, is that everyone likes shows and entertainments.
Mobs are exciting. People also like validation of what they already
believe; the Internet, like all free markets, has a way of gratifying
the mediocrity of the masses. And part of it, especially in politics,
has to do with conservatives. In their frustration with the ancien
régime, conservatives quite eagerly traded for an enlarged discourse.
In the process they created a counterestablishment, one that has
adopted the same reductive habits they used to complain about. The
quarrel over one discrete set of standards did a lot to pull down the
very idea of standards.
Certainly the MSM, such as it is,
collapsed itself. It was once utterly dominant yet made itself
vulnerable by playing on its reputed accuracy and disinterest to pursue
adversarial agendas. Still, as far from perfect as that system was, it
was and is not wholly imperfect. The technology of ink on paper is
highly advanced, and has over centuries accumulated a major
institutional culture that screens editorially for originality,
expertise and seriousness.
Of course, once a technosocial
force like the blog is loosed on the world, it does not go away because
some find it undesirable. So grieving over the lost establishment is
pointless, and kind of sad. But democracy does not work well, so to
speak, without checks and balances. And in acceding so easily to the
imperatives of the Internet, we’ve allowed decay to pass for progress.
Wow. Is it just me or does Mr. Rago come across as a, what is it called, a snob? “The internet, like all free markets, has a way of gratifying the mediocrity of the masses.” Really? Is this what free markets do, Joe? I thought free markets were the ultimate form of democracy, letting the group arrive at the proper outcome, taking into account all information at its disposal at the individual level? Is this mediocrity, or is this the ultimate in intelligence? What do you call the stock market? Are prices mediocre because everybody gets to, in essence, vote on the outcome? If an issue gains traction in the blogosphere to the extent that it begins to impact the physical world, is this because the idea is mediocre? I think not. Joe, I think you lack the knowledge of the power of groups and the quality of decisions that are made by groups versus those made by individuals. Are groups fallible? Of course. Can mob psychology take hold if certain circumstances are present? Sure. But the same can said of the pathology of individual decision-makers, who are suceptible to at least as many if not more pitfalls than groups. So I don’t really buy this argument, either viscerally or empirically. But hey, that’s just my (imbicilic - given that I’m a blogger) point of view.
Do blogs vary in quality? Sure. Is there a lot of crap? Yes. Does mainstream media vary in quality? Of course. Are there absolutely terrible writers who do a lousy job of research and their articles reflect their views and not the facts? Tons. So Joe, get off your high horse and look at your peers, and maybe even yourself. And Joe, my friend, why are you so turned off to “instantaneity” (even journalists make up words now and again, I guess)? Some people find speed of reporting to be a virtue, Joe. Sorry if you are not in that camp. And remember how bloggers are often early on the scene, providing early insights, pictures, commentary, and often assistance. Is this a bad thing, Joe? Really not worth much? And what about the stuff of my work, early insights and unique perspectives for investors? That pool of mediocrity of which you refer is, happy to say, is also a font of interesting insights, both on an individual and an aggregate basis. Remember, Joe, bloggers range from Nobel Laureates to novelists, professors to pencil pushers, jocks to, yes, even journalists like you. And sometimes when you look across the sea of seemingly useless data points and connect the dots, you are able to divine things like sentiment about products, brands and companies, which can be really helpful to investors, the companies themselves and advertising agencies alike. So am I missing something, here, Joe? This seems like pretty good stuff. Maybe your painting blogs with such a broad brush wasn’t really fair, after all. Just maybe.
Though I could write for hours but will (mercifully) cut it short, I can’t help but comment on the statement regarding democracy and its malfunction in light of the lack of checks-and-balances in the blogosphere. Now isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black, my friend? How many careers, how many companies, how many reputations has mainstream media destroyed, and what recourse did people have? Wasn’t mainstream media often judge and jury? Didn’t entire industries evolve around how to help companies and individuals deal with the perceived threat of mainstream media? Did this happen because of the wonderful check-and-balances that were in place, Joe? Sorry. You’ve got the democracy argument completely backwards. It is the blogosphere that creates the checks-and-balances for mainstream media. Now mainstream media actually has to answer to someone other than to themselves - the general population who happens to be online, aware and possessing a voice. It is funny - I actually wrote about this during a rant at Richard Berke of the New York Times a few months ago. Though it is pretty cheesy to quote oneself, this post and Mr. Rago’s piece is so rife with irony that I can’t resist. Here are a few of the things I communicated to Mr. Berke on November 2nd:
Richard Berke said: “Some of the blogs take a toll on our reporters.
One question on our minds is, ‘What are the blogs going to say?”Roger said: Richie, baby, you’ve got to be kidding me. There is this thing that has been
around for centuries - let’s call it mainstream media for kicks. Well, MSM has
been known to dig up stories, report the facts, sometimes bend the facts to
match a thesis and generally make those who happen to be the targets of MSM
writers pretty miserable. As someone who spent nearly two decades on Wall Street
working on deals that were often news-worthy, I was often reminded of the old
adage “Don’t do/say/write anything that you wouldn’t be willing to see on the
front page of the XXXX (choose your favorite MSM daily publication).” Why?
Because of MSM and concern over how what we say and do might be perceived. This
was a rational concern, and while it may have been a pain at times to rigidly
comply with this directive, it did ultimately build discipline, precision and
professionalism. The PR industry grew up around how to handle the potential
ramifications of being in the MSM, and how to manage one’s image in the media.
So, Richard, we have all been worrying about “What are the MSM writers going to
say” for centuries; the fact that you and your peers now need to think about
your constituencies for a change truly warms my heart. Wake up.
The world has changed. Get some thicker skin.Richard Berke said: “There are people dedicated to analyzing and
picking apart whatever we say and do.”Roger said: Awww, people are actually going to be critical about what you write and how
you do your job. YEAH, WHAT ABOUT IT? It’s called
checks-and-balances, Rick, you know, like we have in government
and which we really should have in media? Well, now we have it. Kinda means you
need to up your game, doesn’t it? Maybe dig a little deeper when doing research,
interview that extra person to make sure you can confidently corroborate your
thesis, anticipate potential holes in your story by thinking about the potential
criticisms coming from knowledgeable bloggers? This is a healthy process,
RIchard. Sorry if it feels like a burden, but when viewed through the prism of
opportunity I think you’ll conclude that this can contribute to better
journalism and a healthy and necessary balance in a historically unbalanced
system.
So you see who was talking about checks-and-balances here, Joe? ME. It seems like you and Richard are the ones that should go bowling together and discuss how the blogosphere is dragging down mainstream media. Maybe between the two of you you’ll come up with a cogent argument. Because I haven’t seen it yet.
