The Agonist - Blog Criticism

Why journalists must learn the values of the blogging revolution

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:18:58 -0700

June 25 | Roy Greenslade | The Guardian

The debate over blogging's usefulness to journalism tends to get stuck in a cul de sac, mainly because too few people - well, too few journalists - treat it seriously. At conferences I've attended recently, speakers have referred to blogging as little more than a sad ego trip. It is not regarded as having any real public service value.

I'll scream if I hear yet again that the blogosphere is a form of anarchy, a cacophony of self-centred and mischievous voices who are either talking to each other or talking to no-one at all. I'm not denying that aspect, though I don't see why people sitting at computer terminals day after day and downloading their thoughts should threaten civilisation as we know it.

What is also clear, most obviously in peer to peer blogging, is that people are engaged with each other as never before. Without any institutional or corporate coaxing, people are forming cyber communities in which they converse endlessly about their interests.

I say this as a preliminary to explaining why journalists, especially print veterans like me, are so suspicious of bloggers. We have spent our lives dominating conversations. No, that's wrong of course. We did not converse at all. We lectured. We provided the information that people feasted on in order to hold their own conversations.

AP to meet bloggers

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:18:22 -0700

Seth Sutel – 17 June | New York
(AP) — The Associated Press, following criticism from bloggers over an AP assertion of copyright, plans to meet this week with a bloggers' group to help form guidelines under which AP news stories could be quoted online.

Jim Kennedy, the AP's director of strategic planning, said Monday that he planned to meet Thursday with Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, as part of an effort to create standards for online use of AP stories by bloggers that would protect AP content without discouraging bloggers from legitimately quoting from it.

Progressive Media Whores

Sat, 31 May 2008 05:54:32 -0700

It Takes a Village

Anglachel's Journal

Once in a while, a comment thread is far, far more interesting than the original post.

That happened yesterday on TalkLeft when BTD posted "Document the Atrocities," a short snark at Atrios/Duncan Black (Eschaton) specifically and the Blogger Boyz generally, about the way they no longer challenge the MSM, and giving props to the Incomparable Bob Somerby for always calling the media (major and minor) on their lies, smears, bullshit, and general mendacity.

Has the primary race affected your surfing habits?

Thu, 22 May 2008 05:58:50 -0700

Just curious. It has mine. There are several sites I used to read regularly that I just don't visit anymore. A couple of them I actually refuse to visit again. I keep my bookmarks organized into two basic folders on my toolbar in Firefox. One is my regular reading list and the other is for dumping new finds into. I occasionally reorder them based on how often I return to certain sites, keeping them handy. I've noticed that my 'top 20' have changed dramatically leading me to wonder if this is true for others and whether or not this election is changing the landscape of the blogosphere.

Its funny, I guess, the process of attachment. A trust grew from years of reading some sites that ended in a feeling of abandonment when I realized I had, as is my wont, naively granted too many free passes because I liked them.

A Window

Tue, 20 May 2008 05:18:59 -0700

There is, now, a window. That window opens as Hillary's window for the presidency closes. Obama is, by all of his promises, a neo-liberal and neo-classical president. He's going to make you, the poor, pay for the problems. That's what neo-classical economic prescriptions say, if there is inflation, then something is either regulated, allowing little people to buy too much of it, and that means the solution is to deregulate, privatize, desubsidize, or pass a regressive tax, that will force the small people to make hard choices.

See the price at the gas pump? That's neo-classical economics at work. You, the little people, are using too much gas. That's easy to fix, cut your wages, cut your jobs and let the price go up up up up up until you get it through your head that you, the little people are going to pay a gas tax to bail out the banking system. And you are going to say

"Thank you President Obama, may I have another?"

That's why there is a moment coming, and that moment is with the collapse of Hillary. You see the liberals, and new liberals, went from one candidate to another on the margins: Edwards, Richardson, Dodd - each one with his strengths and weaknesses. Finally the wall came, and they had to choose between somewhat more economically liberal Hillary and some what more open to new people Obama. The fight got vicious, because the stakes are so small. Krugman pushed Edwards and then Hillary in his own way.

Carter, Hamas, Israel and The Truth

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:16:01 -0700

We all owe a debt of gratitude to Jimmy Carter. This is a man that has consistently tried to do what others in the political arena seem unable to do, and that is to live up to their own expectations, regardless of the political costs. His recent trip to the Middle-East was Carter at his finest. While he understood all to well that the compromised, immoral regimes of both Israel and Washington did not support his mission and were unlikely to approve anything that came out of his meetings with Hamas, he chose to go in order to illustrate to the world what these two governments are really about. I believe Carter was successful in illustrating that neither America nor Israel want to pursue a realistic solution for peace. If anything, his visit proved once again, that Israel seeks not peace, but capitulation.

Banned!

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:28:59 -0700

I have been writing about the same things for years now. I have been writing against the loss of our freedoms, the draconian laws that have been enacted in order to “protect” us from people that “hate us for our freedom”, I have written about the corporations that have tied this nation to war and more war. Even though my message has been the same, I find that my writing has fallen on deaf ears as of late. In fact, my writing, because of my criticism of this phony two-party system that has led us to where we are now, I have been banned from OpEdNews.com, DailyKos.com.TPMMuckracker.com, and left me with a small sidebar on SmirkingChimp.com.

War Blogging

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:46:13 -0700

My stepson Patrick had a blogger in Iraq Friend his LiveJournal some years ago and I marveled that the people overseas were actually allowed such web latitude. It was a silver lining in the mire to me. It wasn't long ago now though that I read all that had been curtailed. Apparently whatever I had read was incorrect or at least not completely correct. I'm a bit lost now on what the truth is.
Then today I come across this ThinkProgress piece on the military's contemplation of how they might blog their message across:

Military report: secretly 'recruit or hire bloggers.'

You Call Yourself a Liberal/Progressive? Pleeeze!

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:47:13 -0700

Excuse me if I offend anyone in this article, but I would like to know what happened to the Democratic Party? I always thought of Democrats as those that supported Unions, workers, the middle-class, civil liberties and silly things like that. One thing I was also taught to do was to follow the money when it comes to whom really is supporting who in things such as criminal enterprises and of course, politics. I have been around for a while now, and I believe that I’m just as aware of what’s happening in my own country as anyone else. In fact, I believe that I’m really more aware of what’s happening than most. I am a voracious reader and I have a lot of time on my hands and I actually try to dig behind the rhetoric I hear. What I have found amazes me.

Blogging Is Bad For You: So Says Doris Lessing

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 07:44:59 -0800

Mick Fealty, one of my favorite bloggers, has a great post up on the virtues of blogging:

Doris Lessing, a novelist of great emotional intelligence . . . appears to back [a] latter day Luddite agenda saying the Internet has "seduced a whole generation by its inanities" and, worse, "even quite reasonable people may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc?"

It strikes me that if all journalism was to be judged by its lowest common denominator, you might come to the same conclusion about print newspapers. But there are intimations that actually, whoever you are, or however badly you do it, blogging is good for you.

Well said. More here. For the record, I am a fan of Lessing's work and always viewed her as a far-sighted novelists in many ways. So, this attack on blogging is strange.

Waiting For Godot...I mean ads.yieldmanager.com

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:48:54 -0800

In 1994, I began my Internet experience, buying my first modem, purchasing my first domain, the WWW was still first generation, and Internet society was largely BBSs and mailing groups.

That modem was a 2400 bd, not state of the art at that point, but that is what was available to the layperson.

Wow did it take off. Everything improved, got better, faster, more graphically intense, faster, more content options, faster, and faster still.

Then the blogs, and at the same time of the advent of blogs, corporate interest in advertising to the masses via blogs.

Enter Yieldmanager.Com, and, concurrently, a backslide to the days of the modem, here in the time of WiFi, Wii, and Korea's absolute - and embarrassing - excellence in Internet speed and accessibility.

Robots Are Taking Over The Web!

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 08:05:46 -0800

At this pivotal moment the Internet is becoming evermore subjugated to commercial interests of a cartel of domineering big media corporations.

Read on here: http://coanews.org/article/2007/our-web-not-theirs">http://coanews.org/article/2007/our-web-not-theirs

New media douchebags explained.

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:31:13 -0800

(h/t The Vast Jeff Wing Conspiracy)

So did China really ban Bibles?

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:10:34 -0800

Richard Aregood | Nov 12 | The Guardian

Beijing denied a story about an Olympic Bible ban spread by the rightwing media but it was actually a Catholic news service that shut it down

The story had everything going for it. It was outrageous. It was emotionally laden. It involved suppression of religion by godless communists. The flurry of attention in the comments section of rightwing political and religious websites was instantaneous. The problem was that it wasn't true.

A recent editorial in the conservative New York Sun kicked off the fuss by citing a report from the Catholic News Service asserting that the Chinese government would bar athletes from bringing Bibles to the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games. Pajamas Media, home of many a rightwing blog, followed up with a report, also citing CNS, and adding the strange cavil "if true".

more after the jump

Liberals have human brain cells and thus should be saved from extinction

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 06:34:25 -0700

Humpback whales have "human" brain cells

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Humpback whales have a type of brain cell seen only in humans, the great apes, and other cetaceans such as dolphins, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

This might mean such whales are more intelligent than they have been given credit for, and suggests the basis for complex brains either evolved more than once, or has gone unused by most species of animals, the researchers said.

The finding may help explain some of the behaviours seen in whales, such as intricate communication skills, the formation of alliances, cooperation, cultural transmission and tool usage, the researchers report in The Anatomical Record.