Can Bloggers Scoop the MSM?
By Leon H Wolf Posted in User Blogs — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Chris Hanson has an interesting article in the print edition of today's Washington Post that examines the reasons for the recent Newsweek debacle. I hate to keep beating this drum but it seems that over and over again we are faced with the reality that the MSM is slowly coming to understand that they have a credibility problem, but they are singularly incapable of understanding why. In an unintentionally hilarious piece of ridiculous finger-pointing, Hanson posits the interesting notion that the reason the MSM keeps floating dubious stories is because they're afraid they'll get scooped by the bloggers.Hanson first addresses the rather obvious point that the MSM has a legitimate problem, rather than just a problem of perception, and for this he should be praised.
Newsweek's mistake is only the latest example of a deepening crisis in American journalism. Too often these days, reporters and editors seem unable or unwilling to perform a basic duty - sifting rumor from fact, salesmanship from independent analysis - and instead become conduits for falsehoods, half-truths, and propaganda.
In this wise, Hanson is spot on. Where he goes astray is in his search for the cause of this shoddy reporting:
Ironically, Newsweek and its Koran-abuse reporter, Michael Isikoff, inadvertently helped create today's fact-challenged media tornado. Seven years ago, cyber-gossiop Matt Drudge... scooped Newsweek on its own Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky blockbuster, posting on his Web site a leaked synopsis of the story Isikoff had prepared for the magazine about the affair between the president and the intern. So began the shift to intense Web competition among mainstream news outlets. To avoid being Drudged, they began posting their scoops online, on what had hitherto been glacial newspaper sites that never carried exclusives ahead of the paper editions. It was suddenly a deadline-every-second world, with little time for verification...Newsweek thought its Koran-in-the-toiled exclusive worthy of just a few lines in its gossipy Periscope section. The Newsweek team could have held the story for more verification. Instead, they checked the draft with a Pentagon official. He did not dispute the anecdote, and Newsweek evidently got the wrong impresion that heh ad confirmed it. This was a far cry from the laborious checking and multi-source requirements that had delayed Newsweek's Lewinsky story in 1998.
What stunning ignorance. Hanson either doesn't understand, or willfully ignores, several important differences between Drudge scooping Lewinsky and anything that happened with the current story.
First, the Lewinsky story was true - proven so at long last by irrefutable DNA evidence. What we are dealing with here is another animal altogether, an unverified smear.
Second, they ignore the fact that bloggers, in the real sense of the word, are more or less incapable of scooping the MSM, and were especially so on a story dealing with news out of Cuba.
I know personally that MachoNachos has exactly zero foreign correspondents in Cuba who might have scooped Newsweek on this story. However, when you add the combined blogs of my esteemed colleagues at RedState, we bring our total of Cuban correspondents to... zero. Although, let's be honest, there are other blogs bigger and more resourceful than us, so if we add together Hugh Hewitt, Powerline, Captain's Quarters, Roger L. Simon and Instapundit, we bring our final total of correspondents covering Guantanamo bay to .... zero.
The fact of the matter is that most bloggers have what some people call "day jobs." We blog for fun or pleasure, and occasionally a little profit. The MSM serves a news gathering function that we will never adequately serve. The reality is not that the MSM is concerned that we will be so quick at gathering facts that we will scoop them, the reality is that we are so quick at confirming or falsifying facts that the MSM has already dug up that is really putting a burr in the MSM's saddle. Should we really believe that Isikoff floated this story without further confirmation because he was concerned that John Hinderaker might beat him to the punch?
As long as the MSM continues this incredible myopy about the danger that the blogosphere really presents to their existence, their continued existence will be a dubious thing. Newsweek didn't get in trouble because they floated a sloppy story out of concern for being scooped. Newsweek got in trouble because they floated a sloppy story without the proper concern for the fact-checking power of the blogosphere. The Blogs don't present a threat to the MSM, the MSM is a threat to itself, and it's the bloggers who are just now alerting the public to the fact.
MachoNachos
P. S. In the "point-and-laugh" section of the above mentioned editorial, I offer this:
Conservative bloggers pounced quickly to discredit the documents then-CBS anchor Dan Rather relied on last fall in his infamous report about President Bush's National Guard performance... many people think the documents were proven to be forgeries and the gist of the report false. But in reality, no one has demonstated conclusively whether the documents are fake...
If Dan Rather uses rather obviously forged documents, and Dan Rather never admits that they're forged, do they become real? To Chris Hanson they do. Indeed they do.
"As long as the MSM continues this incredible myopy about the danger that the blogosphere really presents to their existence... "
It seems to me quite characteristic of liberals in particular, to percieve a threat in exaggerated fashion when convenient, where none may actually exist; conversely, they do not wish to perceive a threat when an actual crises may occur. I thiink we all know this has all to do with their agenda, to which they must forfeit the truth of reality.
We see them cry wolf when none is present, and we observe their silence when truth bites them in the butt. In this regard, I specifically refer to the incredible triumph of Iraqis to hold an election and vote, immediatey following which it was awfully tippy-toe quiet in the usually noisy quarters.
But if the MSM wishes to perceive such an ominous encroachment from the blogoshphere upon their journalistic arena, well .. hey, it's their delusion. I say let them wallow in it.
Now, just for the record, please allow me to quote from a universally known and undeniably sound source:
"The fear of the wicked shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted." Proverbs 10:24
BTW, Free Republic — while not strictly-speaking a blog — quite frequently 'scoops' the media. That's because there are correspondents all over the world.
Last night, for example, there was a demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. It's probably in the news this morning; it was on FR last night, courtesy of a freeper on the scene.
A year ago Thanksgiving, a thread called "I am having dinner with the President in an undisclosed location in Iraq" was the first news that Bush had snuck in there for Thanksgiving dinner with the troops.
And of course the freeper 'Buckhead' was the first to post on line about Dan Rather's memo being fake.
You are, of course, talking about the difference between a blog and a bulletin board - on a relatively unregulated place like FR, I suppose it's possible to have posters from any number of places.
Admittedly, I'm wandering into unfamiliar territory, I've never even logged on to FR.
I think it is possible, although not always in the "foreign correspondant" way.
First, people like Glenn Reynolds do get photos and on the ground stories from Afghanistan and Iraq despite (I presume) not paying anyone for them (or at least not much).
Second, we have many people with expertises who can scoop the MSM. During the Rathergate fiasco, experts on old typewriters were in demand and online sources found them as quickly as the MSM did. Similarly, the MSM reports on many things they are not experts on... say, economics. Now blogs can have real, live economists run blogs and be linked to by other blogs. Thus, blogs can provide "experts" with an outlet that used to be regulated by the MSM and some reporter taking your quote out of context.
So there are possibilities. But our resources are in small packets spread out across the blogosphere; theirs are concentrated in a half dozen mega-firms. There are pluses and minuses to both set-ups.
You are making my point. Our danger is not as scoopers of stories, but rather as scoopers of fact-checking. The MSM should relax about the incredibly minor threat of us scooping their stories, because they oughta know by know that for sure we're gonna scoop the fact check.
And Glenn Reynolds gets those stories and photos because he's either omnipresent or omniscient (haven't figured out which yet). Nothing the MSM can do about that in any case.
Large demonstrations in Tehran, spreading to other cities in Iraq. Chanting "Death to the dictator! Death to the oppressors!"
This at 5:15 PED 5/23
Seems to me that the whole notion of a "scoop" is a bit antiquated. Who really cares which news organization "scoops" another? In today's world, we are talking about a difference of a few minutes. Big deal.
The MSM (and bloggers too) are wrapping themselves around the axle trying to win a race against themselves.
If a MSM organization today is worried about bloggers or other competitive pressure, I propose that the rational response is to position itself as the "not always first but never wrong" source.
The news business has been deadline driven for so long that they can't think of it any other way. But, really, who cares? In a world of constant, real time news, nothing matters anymore. It all runs together. We are all swimming in the same stream. We have no idea where we are going, just that we are getting there really, really fast.
Here's the real challenge: We tend to assume that virtually every "fact" that is newsworthy will be reported in near real time. The bloggers rely on this. But where is the revenue model that will make basic factual reporting pay in the future?
But in reality, no one has demonstated conclusively whether the documents are fake...
After laughing at this, it's time to cry. Behold the Bart Simpson School of Journalism, where the standard of excellence is, "I didn't fake it. You didn't see me fake it. You can't prove a thing."
And they wonder why their credibility is in the toilet.