Blogs are a publishing process, only sped up by perhaps hundreds of orders of magnitude. As such, they breed a huge volume of junk, as well as a certain amount of real gold. Garbage in is still powerline out, so the satanic PR mills will churn along in any medium. But, given a perceptive critic who can express themselves well (in any of a number of senses, witness your hillbilly blog quotes) the audience connection is instantaneous, continuous, and (potentially) highly interactive.

Great journalism is happening on blogs—Laura Rozen (warandpiece) is as good as any feature journalist working today. Its happening in print also, esp. at the moment in the Wapo, but even daily its So Much Slower in cycle time. This quantitative difference is large enough to drive important qualitative differences.

In addition, blogs that I’m aware of make no pretense whatsoever at “balance”, other than in notable cases where reporting is the object, attempting to report without a lot of the current “balancing” obfuscation. It is very helpful to get a clear shot of someone’s point of view as they communicate, whether its the nitwits at e.g. powerline or a critical genius like aunt twisty at i blame the patriarchy. Fake objectivity is killing the MSM…like they used to say in Soviet times, “there’s no pravda (truth) in izvestia (news) and no izvestia in pravda”.

You know, Jane, when I jumped from Bloglines directly to your article, there was no comment link….

I’ve read Harper’s since I was in high school three decades ago. It’s terrific, and so is your blog. And yes, I had a letter printed in Harper’s several years ago. Our local newspaper even thought that was in itself newsworthy…

Jane, Reddhead, and Loren: Your blog is fantastic and unique. I first read about you guys from Ron Rosenblaum in The New York Observer. His article even read like one of your postings. I have been hooked ever since. Your intelligent and astute postings also attract intelligent comments from your readers. Your blog is definitely light years ahead of most blogs. Bravo!

jane –

i’m an enormous fan of your site, but i have to point out the enormous logical fallacy here — that you’re comaring apples and oranges.

a comparison of your hits and the rate of visits to the NYT website would be more illuminating.

coming very late to the party but … FDL, like usenet early on and some mid-80’s CIS discussion groups, have a flow that cannot be matched by simple text on page

and I’d almost argue that few blogs have the sort of magic that FDL has … most serve as star pods and maintain the same expert/audience split of standard media but FDL and a few others instead form a community … Jane and Redd certainly lead off with their amazing posts but more importantly, they facilitate real conversation and that is extra-ordinary

I find myself often comparing this experience to how I felt reading Billmon when he still allowed comments – the comment section developed a great community feel but he was always (and vocally) uncomfortable with the audience that close and then suddenly closed the bar … and that community, so focused on responding to *his* words, fractured. There is a small group left on one site and some of us created a lovely site for the barflies but the whole dynamic was so dependent on one expert leading a call and response that even that collection of witty, bright folks could not really recover.

FDL does something different – Jane and Redd are astonishing in their ability to dissect an issue or find the fatal flaw or twist the MSM just right to set us all off and chatting – but while they educate, they don’t preach … and rather than keeping “the audience” out there, they invite us in with their words and humour and tales of toddlers and pups. They’ve created a very human hearth for us all to share and I am very grateful.

What do you mean “two-way street” and “interactive”? What opportunity do your readers have to respond? None, I tell you, none! It’s a myth. Wrapped up in an enigma. Or… something. Whatever.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

lil’ jimi rabble | 11.29.05 – 3:23 pm

Tail end of this thread, but not too late to acknowledge a very nice post. “..masively parallel processing…” is right on the money.

I once had a chance to scrub with the dean of local general surgeons, a guy who had a repuration for being fast in the OR. I expected a lot of tension, orders barked to nurses, instruments tossed around at blinding speed, whatever. The secret turned out to be that there was no secret, just careful cutting and sewing. The pace seemed relaxed and methodical Notably, there was no talk of golf scores and new cars. No flirting. No cutesy in jokes. All signal, no noise.

The best feature of this blog is that the management post focussed, organized pieces about a single theme. This encourages the commenters to stay on subject, although the off-topic side threads are often valuable. There aren’t so many opportunites for trolls.

I hate to bring up stereotypes, but it may also have something to do with the fact that women are more concrete and realistic than man. All the great political ideals and abstractions that people get killed over are the product of males. The male psyche is flighty and given to emotional mood swings, perhaps in connection with the hormonal cycles of sports seasons. But perhaps I’m overdoing the identity politics. Clearly, Jane and Redd would be exceptionally able individuals even with the handicap of a Y chromosome.

Jane – re:

“It makes me crazy reading online editions of the WaPo, NYT and others because they don’t have links and then I have to go hunting for them for background.”

—————————

I recently corresponded with the new ombudsman at WaPo about having links to the articles that she discusses in the column. Here is her reply:

“Russ, I’m trying to do the links, and the website has told me it’s much
harder than I thought. Stay tuned. I’ll keep pushing. Deborah”

please. that only makes me sad. FDL offers links, comments, pithy analysis and snappy graphics. pass the popcorn!

Nice little riff you’ve got going there, Jim. :-)

massively parallel processing

many eyes and brains, collectively

bird watching
SETI
searches for large prime numbers
comet searches
intelligence gathering from transport obsessed hobbyists

and in political analysis and reporting:
…. the blogs …
…. enabled by the internet …
as the number of eyes and brains employed by critical readers/contributors increases,
the blogs surpass the extravagantly funded professional news organizations with a wide open,
unlimited discourse and analysis …… …… ……
between the interblog networking and the readership/contributorship volunteering as a vast army of reporters …
and the unlimited reportage on the professional reporting, on the between the lines nuances and innuendos and their possibilities …
…. with a massively parallel critical analysis of the offerings of the professional text preparers of the main stream media corporations …

with humor, sarcasm, profanity, cynicism, wisecracks, snide asides …
compassion,
passion
and vast charm and bright genius …

and filtered through the editorial discretion and publishing of the blog owners …
thus distilled into brilliance

it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness …
millions of candles are being lit …
… blogs are focusing that light …
like a parabolic mirror …

… there are fewer and fewer places for the scumballs to hide …
…. the blogs’ teamwork is also dedicated in catching each others mistakes and oversights
and exercising collective insights cumulatively ….

empowered by the internet’s information sharing facility … enabled by cyberspace’s wiring great numbers of users into networks of mutually interested human information processors … teamwork … a team of action coordinated little guys can overcome a few big guys … a human tribe brings down the mammoth … predators predate larger prey in packs ….

with warm regards
… carry on,

~ yellowdog jim

Sonoma,
I was offline for a year (lightning struck our house and an old power surge protector did not do its job). It was like I’d lost an arm. I was able to go to the library now and then for an hour a day, but that didn’t allow for much perusing of blogs or reading a variety of newspapers.

This blog, with its frequent posts and thoughtful commenters, is quite a find.
This time in the Watergate era, I remember waiting every day for the newspaper, for the nightly news, trying to find out what on earth was going on. Scary time. Information is Power.

A couple days ago I made reference to a report that there may be two different memo’s in the al-Jazeera Bush/Blair scandal brewing. Now Blairwatch has a story up saying that has been confirmed:

[snip] “We have had our suspicions (argued below) that the Times memo and the Mirror memo citing Bush’s plans to bomb al-Jazeera are entirely different documents confirmed by Peter Kilfoyle MP, who has seen both documents.”

http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/612

This little tidbit was stated that puts this back on topic here:

“To date NOT ONE mainstream news outfit has picked up on the two memos story and the implications. Perhaps the future of news is in blogging.

I’ve been out shopping and by the time I got home and read this thread the comments are already long… So doubt if anyone reads this but I have to add my two cents worth.

First, this blog has the best, bar none, comments section. I think that is partly because the authors actually interact with the posters.

Second, the quality of the writing from Jane and Redd is awesome!!! I have been a blot addict for going on two years and FDL has become my favorite blog. And I read some excellent blogs.

I don’t know what will happen with the medium of blogging over the long haul. I don’t think it will go away by any means, but there does have to be some other news sources to base this wonderful analysis and discussion on.

I also worry about how people like Jane and Redd and some of the other wonderful bloggers make a living. Why aren’t they being paid for this wonderful writing? Think Billmon, or Digby…

I know that Kos has become self supporting, managing the huge hardware needs, paying for a software person and making a living for Kos. For sure there are others that I don’t know the specifics on. That has to happen in some format to keep bloggers for the long haul. But the fact that newspapers and TV programs need advertizers to be successful.. also causes some of the problems of control of the news.

I’m at the end of the thread and am just thinking out loud. But I wonder what the economics will do in the long term.

In the meantime, I enjoy. And am very grateful.

Grandma Jo

I love reading Harpers magazine as much as the next ‘informed’ Progressive. However, one should never forget the necessity of context and awareness of the sources of the opinions being shaped.

Mr. Lapham, like his brother is a Yale graduate and a member of Skull and Bones. His brother was a lawyer who worked for the CIA during some of its most covert and ‘black’ years.

A review of the list (incomplete) of membership in the fraternity as linked here:
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/bones.htm
also confirms, as many already are aware, John KerryÂ’s membership.

The concern for Blogs and their evolution on the Internet should be one of eternal vigilance to preserve their independence. They, the truthful ones at least, should always avoid being sheltered beneath either the Neocon, or in the case of Harpers, the Neolib wings of the same Uniparty beast.

Truth must first recognize and discern power.
Only then will it be able to speak effectively.

~

Just think how many marriages you’ve saved by providing an outlet for those obsessed with all things Plame related! I no longer have to bore my husband by explaining the arcane details of the case, I can come here and do that or read the other comments that are even more obsessive than mine. Sometimes I can even get him to read some of them.
Thanks, this place is addictive.

A year ago, I was offline for a couple of months. My sources for scuttlebutt regressed twenty years. Newspapers, radio, and TV were again my only source of information. That, after nearly 10 years of having been wired in.

Surprisingly, the shock was not simply great, but profound. I hadn’t realized how fantastically altered my expectation of what constitutes a tale well told had changed.

Naturally, I had understood that people who strictly relied on the aforementioned conventional sources were at a disadvantage. But it proved far more sinister than that. Those people could be folded, spun, and informationally mutilated so much more easily than I had ever, really understood. And, of course, they still can be, and still are. There’s a good reason why news divisions are a corporations crown jewels, and it has nothing to do with truthtelling. I was struck full force why it was that the truly evil swine that Big Lied this nation into waging war were so confident they could succeed in their infamy. “Trust but verify” was an option denied the vast majority of the American people (but not their Congress, goddamnit. But that’s another story).

It boils down to the simple fact that the more sources a person has available for any political issue, the better. And all in the blink of an eye.

Mrs. K8

Thanks for providing an insightful perspective.

Correction —

In saying “we have yet to meet many folks who share our values” I did not mean to include the friendly immigrants in our midst.

Frankly, I don’t know if we share values with them, our communication difficulties leave us limited to very basic concrete topics. Until I become fluent in Spanish, or they become more fluent in English, we won’t be able to get to more abstract topics.

Agreed, Jane. The main factor of blogging is the interactivity and accessibility of the author.

Blogs enable direct connection s between the writer and the reader, as well as between the readers. It’s the network effect: everyone who contributes to the blog is connected. And, the power of a network is exponentially related to the number of nodes. Newspapers or magazines don’t have this effect, because they are essentially one-way.

Also, as you pointed out Jane, the authors of blogs are accessible, almost immediately. Readers know who a blogger is, who they’re accountable to, and can interact directly with the blogger.

Combined interactivity with the ease of distribution and ease of publishing and gee, we’ve got ourselves a revolution on our hands.

So many others have already stated here all the valuable points about blogs which I would have mentioned had I gotten here sooner.

Let me mention one which is specific to me and others like me.

The fight to overcome disability incurred from a nasty accident almost 8 years ago will be an ongoing battle that may last yet a few more years.

In the meantime, we find ourselves living in a place with virtually no public transportation. In addition to the fact that it’s not yet safe enough for me to start driving again, we only have one functional vehicle which Mr. K8 takes to work. Mr. K8 himself is up to his eyeballs in work which often demands lots of overtime, and in taking care of the normal errands of shopping and suchlike.

Because my accident happened 2 years after we moved here (and because the first 2 years were spent taking care of my terminally ill mother-in-law, the reason we moved here), we have virtually no social network in this new “home” of ours. We’ve had no time/opportunity to build a social network.

Our neighbors turn out to be mostly a collection of GoOpers, gun nuts, fundies, wonderfully friendly immigrants who nonetheless still barely speak any English, and people who have gone into hock spending money they don’t have on crap they don’t need and who live for watching sit-coms. In other words, we have yet to meet many folks who share our values.

Not that we’re not trying — on those few occasions we can get out, we try to attend political meetings of progressives who give us hope for the changing political landscape here in Arizona.

Sorry for all the personal info, but this is leading up to what blogs do for me — they enable me to feel connected to the larger world, and to feel that I have a contribution, however small, to make in the larger discussion. I’ve also heard remarks from others who live in rural or other areas hostile to progressives (like colleen military mom, and others) that indicate our “virtual” communities fill a very vital need.

What the Internet can do for folks like me is amazing — last year I was able to bust my butt working on the campaign, as our state party had work for me to do using their secure online voter database and my own home phone to turn out the vote and rally other volunteers.

Many good progressive blogs keep me informed.

FDL enables me to feel part of a community. Every once in a blue moon someone will make a remark letting me know that something I said either inspired them to take action (like joining PDA/DFA), or provided a boost of optimistic determination when things looked bleak.

I almost have no words to express how much that means to me.

In addition, I am constantly grateful for the thought-provoking, witty posts of our hosts, and for the honest give-and-take of wrestling with issues here in the comments. More important to me, though, is the sense of bucking each other up, rallying each other to continue fighting for the long slog ahead as we take back our democracy from the traitors who have stolen it.

And THIS is EXACTLY why I don’t read MSM religiously, to the exclusion of blogs.

The average Joe SixPack relying on cable news and newspapers would read this bit by AP and accept it unquestioningly. But a diarist within a blog does the leg work, points out the conflicts of interest, and I can skip the AP and get on to something more factual and relevant.

The printing press was the first blog. 200 years ago, thousands and thousands of pamphlets were printed. Those pamphlets formed the heart of the discussion about what next for both America and France. It is not an exaggeration to say that without those “blogs”, neither revolution would have happened.

Then we lost it. Only “books” were printed, and the cold calulus of profit censored what could be printed. Magazines and newspapers failed to fill the need.

Now we have blogs. Now we have FDL and ObWi, and others. Atrios and Arianna have gone right by the goal, at least in my opinion.

It is discussion that counts. Discussion between commenters, discussion between blogs.

Jake

PS – my firewall has also decided to let me comment again.

I opened this comments thread with a real quickie (inadequate to be sure) because I was just leaving the office. (Yes, I can blog at work because I am boss.) When I got home, there were already over 90 comments. This in itself tells you how dynamic the medium is.

So, to continue: the phrase I can come up with that best defines blogging is…the empowerment to traffic in ideas for anyone who has access to the Internet. This is revolutionary. That is also one reason why authoritarians hate blogs. Already in China the blogs are being stepped on because they represent more freedom than the Politbureau can tolerate. Ideas after all, are weapons (like a fired o’glake?), and can be used either in the service of repression or freedom. Blogs represent the freedom side of the equation because they invite and thrive on participation (the best ones do anyway) and the free exchange of ideas.

Having said that, the vast majority of blogs are not worth the bandwidth they travel on. (I ran one for a few months until it took my sanity away… besides nobody came, and it was too much work.) But like ideas, the best can survive and make a difference. I will say this: much to the detriment of my personal life and workload, I keep coming back. That is one of the bad things about a good blog.

I like reading and posting to blogs. I enjoy Harpers, the New Yorker and various newspapers.

It isn’t either/or for me. It’s both.

The participatory nature of blogs does foster commmunity. But annonymity fosters a huge amount of detritus. Some folks end to misbehave when no one knows who they are.

And just like print media, many know not of which they speak.

But Harpers and the New Yorker can devote time and money and space to a story in ways bloggers cannot. And that keeps me engaged.

Besides. I still love the act of holding and reading a magazine after I’ve removed all the renewals slips.

What I love most about blogs, besides the instantaneous and interactive qualities, is the humanity of them.

Shez — makes you wonder whether the IP would lead to a PC at the desk of a member of the MSM…? Or an RNC operative? Or…?

I have to admit, as a blogger I find the IP addresses just about as much fun as the comments themselves. Fun to see what some folks are doing at work.

ROFL, love that trexin!

As with most crimes, Anonymous 11.29.05 – 12:59 pm , left behind some valuable evidence, an IP addie.

I’m quite new at all of this, but I find it curiously addictive. I subscribe to lots of magazines that I rarely read. By contrast, I find myself looking forward to visiting this site.

That said, keeping up with this blog is downright exhausting! By the time I finish reading an article, it has 90 comments. By the time I get through the comments, there are 90 more. I occasionally write a comment, but by the time I post it, the conversation has moved past it. Perhaps I simply need to learn to read faster, think faster, write faster, and not proofread.

To follow a single thread each day would take me hours. To follow all of the threads would be a full time occupation. Don’t get me wrong: I think your blog gives more to its participants partly because it requires more from them. But I don’t think most people will give it as much time as your typical participant gives. The quality of the comments here is quite high, but that comes at a price.

Oh just shut up. You’re a pedant with the means to explore your pedantry. Stop thinking you’re somehow changing the world. If not for the MSM you so endlessly deride, you’d have nothing to link to. You’re just one of the new enablers. Congratulations.
Anonymous | 11.29.05 – 12:59 pm | #

Big words coming from someone who doesn’t even have the balls to post sans anonymity. I guess that’s one of the problems with blogs and the internet–when people aren’t required to provide any identity at all, they can toss around jackassery like singles at a strip club, and not have to defend anything they say.

I agree with others when they say the ability to comment makes a blog. I just wish I could figure out how to get more of a participation from my own readers.

sonate – I would CC’ the ombudsman too ;)

ombudsman@washpost.com

I am gonna snark at anon… Just cause you can’t change the world, is no reason to try to stop those of us who can ;)

xoxoxo

Jane’s got a new one up!

Comment — your blog, in particular, tends to be content heavy, focused on objectively reporting current events, clever and entertainingly creative. Since most mainline media I am exposed to are none of the above, I can understand why a comparison may be difficult. Guess it hasn’t trickled down yet — when you control an industrial industry, you can ignore the concerns of your workers without much consequence, but when you control the media industry, your market depends on NOT ignoring the concerns of your readers and viewers.

Oh just shut up. You’re a pedant with the means to explore your pedantry. Stop thinking you’re somehow changing the world. If not for the MSM you so endlessly deride, you’d have nothing to link to. You’re just one of the new enablers. Congratulations.

Now go let me scurry back into my anonymous hole and cower some more. I too love blogs, it allows me to lob grenades without anybody knowing who I am!!! It is a COWARD’S PARADISE IN HERE!!!

Thanks for Birnbaum’s e-mail address Me. I just fired off a letter to him. (I’m less confident than you that he’ll actually read it, but at least I’m doing something by writing.)

I’ve written ten times as many letters and emails to them in the past couple of years as in my entire life before that. (Not that I’ve had anything published, of course…) Whether they accept it or not, I feel a sense of ownership, and if they screw up, I’m entitled to let them know.

Me too, and we are not alone. Ask the 3500 other people here:
http://fusioner.proboards60.co…..1131129004

I read several on-line papers, and a print edition daily. I follow AP newswire reporters. As soon as they start screwing up, I LET EM HAVE IT!!! Things got all messed up to where they are because people became complacent. Activism is the only way to get back what we have lost.

Two interesting stories in the USA Toady… First, imo, USA Toady is about as gooper a publication as you can find anywhere in the US. 10 years ago I saw it as a liberal media source, but then I stopped following it… When I came back to it (not because I wanted to) several months ago I found it completly gooperized. It was doing nothing more than spewing a party line. Things are changing there now….

http://www.usatoday.com/news/o…..edit_x.htm

^^ A decently balanced War Op/Ed ^^ It’s not perfect, but it has come a long, long way… And they did not print “the other view”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/o…..edit_x.htm

^^ Political corruption Op/Ed ^^

The trail of political money and perks leads to dozens of other lawmakers who just happened to help Indian tribes that Abramoff represented. According to an Associated Press report, 33 members of the Senate and the House of Representatives wrote letters urging the Bush administration to reject a Louisiana Indian casino opposed by Abramoff’s clients. Many of the lawmakers lived far from Louisiana and had no apparent interest in the fight beyond their financial links to Abramoff, his clients or associates.

These are positions that are worth reading… Finally, finally, finally… But I have written several dozen letters, and put them near the top of the media resources list… So lots of other people have been writing too.

http://fusioner.proboards60.co…..1131129004

How many letters did _YOU_ send last week? How much of an activist are you if you post here and call yourself “involved” but you are not shoving your words and opinions down the throat of some MSM editors out there in corp world?

The only comeback if you are not participating… Is to send letters out!!!

I am a regular blog reader, and I am a fan of firedoglake. But to compare your blog, Jane, to Harpers, really misses the point. Magazines like Harpers provide a unique service, bringing together in one, portable package some of the best writers and thinkers around, with a diversity of viewpoints, skill sets and language skills.
Blogs give you instant response-time, they can poke into corners the MSM ignores, they can sometimes change the course and tenor of the national discussion of major issues. All to the good. What blogs can’t do is expend the time and resources that a Harpers or a New York Times or even a Pittsburgh Post Gazette can expend in reporting on and writing about a story and, for that matter, most (I’m saying MOST, not ALL) bloggers lack the level of writing skill one can find in a Harpers, and, more importantly, most lack the reportorial skills one can find in abundance at even a mid-size newspaper.
Where would your blog — any blog — be without the conventional news media? Jane, you above all else know that you’d have almost nothing to write about at all!
One of your commenters talked about blogs being alive, newspapers being dead. I beg to differ. Newspapers have their problems, many of them self-induced. But the biggest to my point of view (full disclosure: I am a former newspaper reporter, come of age during Watergate and still foolishingly convinced that journalism is a high calling) is that people under the age of 35 are too damn lazy to read them.
Smart people like smart blogs, but lazy minds love ‘em, too, because a blog item can be read in a few minutes or less, and the author will conveniently tell the reader what to think and what it all means. As an added bonus, everyone gets a chance to shoot their mouths off in teh comments section — myself included. That’s fine. But it’s the lazy person’s way of understanding the world. Yes, read blogs, but pick up the damn newspaper and give it a half hour of your undivided attention. Is their crap in there? Of course. Are their indispensible nuggest of information in there? Absolutely. Will you have to figure out on your own what to think when you’re done. YES! And that’s good!

Jane -
I don’t understand your second point:

Secondly, they publish monthly and their circulation is 227,538.
We get that every week.

This and the photo seem to suggest the NYTimes got this wrong in addition to the ownership error. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Harper’s magazine IS published monthly which they are referring to and it’s Harper’s Weekly Review which is published weekly.

Another good thing about blogs and their comment sections is that opportunity is afforded those, such as myself, who hit the “send” button too quickly or make other mistakes they are able quickly to ammend or correct.

In my case, I wanted to say that the new Froomkin article is up and this veteran thinks Fred Kaplan’s questions really need to be asked and answered.

I too-quickly posted here: http://www.haloscan.com/commen…..39/#176879

–

To echo what other people said: the comments absolutely make a site. I cannot for the life of me imagine why some bloggers don’t have them. To me, at least, part of the point of all this is that it allows us to be in conversation with all sorts of sharp people we would never otherwise meet; and one of the things I love about Obsidian Wings, where I write, is that it has an absolutely great group of commenters, who keep all of us on our toes in the nicest possible way. (Usually.) (Heh heh.)

I think blogs and newspapers/magazines are just different things, useful for different purposes. We rely on them: I, for one, am not in a position to pay James Fallows to write stories, but I’m glad someone is. But we have our own uses. I hope.

One funny thing is why do we all hang out here in Jane and Redd’s comments? I also read emptywell and comments there but some how people find each other on a given day to discuss a given topic.

I even see Jay Rosen pops in on ocation to chat it up?

We are all bussy and I would guess some well paid people so why do we choose to spend our time which is a scarce commodity here as apposed to other places?

For me Blogging is about the consumer becoming the producer in the value creation process.

You can get credit for your creative contribution in ways that you can’t by writing a letter to the editor.

Stephen Dulaney

when it’s done right (as here), blogs are better than MSM because it’s access to news, analysis, commentary and discussion in a compact format. how many times have I re-read a paragraph in the paper trying to figure out “What does this mean? is this someone’s spin, what elements of the story did the reporter or editor omit? Do they have a bias, or incomplete info? The paper lays there on the table, mute. take it or leave it. compared to a competent, well-informed blogsite, that’s deeply unsatisfactory. I check out HuffPo too. But I come here first.

The other thing about the interaction is that it lets lots of us contribute in small ways (while having the godlike Jane and ReddHedd to do the heavy lifting.) I post a diary over at Kos every few months or so because I’m a slow writer and it takes me a long time to put together something substantive, but I can still contribute the occasional insight here and at a few other communities with a high signal-to-noise ratio and feel like I’m really part of something.

One odd thing is that this participation has really changed how I interact with the WaPo and NPR, my two major traditional media sources. I’ve written ten times as many letters and emails to them in the past couple of years as in my entire life before that. (Not that I’ve had anything published, of course…) Whether they accept it or not, I feel a sense of ownership, and if they screw up, I’m entitled to let them know. I wonder how widespread that feeling is, and if it’ll have any effect on them going forward (at least perhaps counteracting the idiotic “liberal media” myth.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..00879.html

“Kaplan proposes some fine questions: ‘President Bush is going to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. That no longer seems in doubt. The question is: How does he plan to do it? Which troops will come out first? How quickly? Where will they go? Under what circumstances will they be put back in? Which troops will remain, and what will they do? How will they keep a profile low enough to make the Iraqi government seem genuinely autonomous yet high enough to help deter or stave off internal threats? Who will keep the borders secure, a task for which the Iraqi army doesn’t even pretend to have the slightest capability? What kinds of diplomatic arrangements will he make with Iraq’s neighbors — who have their own conflicting interests in the country’s future — to assure an international peace?’ “

Jane,
I guess you noticed that the (insert corporate icon here) firewall dumbed itself down and lets me open the comments again. It must somehow be watching too much Press the Meet on NBC.

I’m plan on purchasing some FDL gear in hopes that you and Redd’s toddler get a piece of the pie.

The interactive nature of the blogs is the key to their appeal for so many people over the traditional news and information vehicles. Rapid and diverse vetting, personal and professional perspectives and tangential but key aspects of any given post can be rapidly and efficiently aired. The environment is Darwinian in its efficiency at weeding out the bogus and the incompetent. Judith Miller would have failed quickly as a blogger in these parts, although she might have found a home with the likes of Hindrocket. Even there she would have been exposed fairly soon with the kind of scrutiny blogging receives from one and all. Involvement is a great draw. Got a question? Just ask. Got a tidbit to contribute? Need to vent creatively ?Fire up the keyboard. It’s a garden of First Amendment delights unbeholden to the “gatekeeper’s” advertisers or stockholders. There is no make up around here to hide the warts on the face of reality.

I shot my wad about the nature of being an amateur blog commenter on the last thread but it seems more appropriate for this one. Call it premature eblogulation.

The attraction to commenting is visceral from the satisfaction of introspective analysis (those haiku moments) as well as the participation in a community in the pursuit of continuity. It could be argued that ego inflation and self delusion are the underlying flaws which condemn blogaholics to irrelevance, but it is the irreverence that brings renewal to the outmoded cultural forms (read: complicit MSM shillery).

If there is reason to pursue each new thread as a stepping stone to continuity (and our minds make sure that there is) then blogs may become the saving grace for democracy – not as we know it, but as we would have it.

I’ve always looked at this electronic medium as a living thing. The Internet is like the mind of the world, and blogs are the eyes, ears, and voice. We all get to share in the free and IMMEDIATE exchange of ideas, and that’s what makes this so different from traditional media.

The ongoing discussion and rapid dissemination of knowledge in situations like Traitorgate is going to bring about changes in the way politicians act, because as a group we’re getting too damned smart for them. The revolution isn’t being televised, it’s being digitized.

Oh, and sorry about the busted link this morning…funny, I work with computers, too. Jane, I emailed you a screen cap of my FDL wallpaper.

So many good points here, but the instant vetting of sources, the interconnection of strands of knowledge (using links) which allow the whole web to be seen as real or illusory–that’s the key for me.

And for others, I bet. I KNOW I see MSM work which looks like it was lifted from this site, either from the main pieces or from the comments. And that doesn’t show how many MSM “idea lightbulbs” were turned on by seeing it here first, in the well-turned phrases we’ve all come to enjoy.

It’s happening here, and in other places, too. But the buzz here is unquestionable.

I hope when you say new editors at Harpers you’re not talking about replacing Lewis Lapham?

re: language and blogs

I agree that the conversational style of writing that blogs tend to produce is best and most accessible. The standard way to construct a news piece has its place, but it tends not to provide much meta-review and meaning. Blogs do that better.

Salty language in the right dose is also a boon. Some otherwise obscene or “offensive” images convey meaning far more compellingly, accurately and tellingly than sanitized prose ever can. And the occasional swear word nicely connotes passion and emphasis.

Fuck yeah.

blogs *may* replace the boutique media
if indeed that was the point
it remains to be seen how many blogs can sustain for extended periods of time
and growth (always a difficult thing to manage , growth)

Blah blah blog.
Ok, I made joke.
But honestly, I think that “interactive” talk is the only way we ever really get to the truth.

BTW – the new logo is fabulous.

firedoglake gives me context
and analysis
and chuckles (okay guffaws even)

what most blogs don’t give is news
the msm falls well short, but they have the resources to gather information
it seems that these days blogs push them do do so

FDL has become a trusted daily staple. Keep your eye on the ball Jane. I almost wet my pants reading your October posts while we all waited for word from Fitzgerald. Great penetration into the guts of the Plame affair, with an acid humor and gloves off ferver not really possible in print, it seems.

As for the value of blogs, they are currently like Google stock, riding a wave of interest and curiousity that will hit a wall when the shine starts to fade. Then we’ll see what the real value is.

Don’t water it down, stay sharp.

And thanks.

I hope Jeff Birnbaum of the Washington Post reads your blog. I read his article about the Washington DC money scandals in today’s WaPo and wanted to write him an angry letter (he made it sound like the Dems were just as guilty of taking bribes as the repugs). When I went to the WaPo contact page where they have the email addresses of their writers I couldn’t find his name. It is my understanding writers at the Post have the option of giving out their email addresses to readers. So, either he is afraid of reader feedback or he can’t be bothered. The MSM mindset in a nutshell.

I posted his email earlier in the day. They use a standard format at the WaPo. I sent him an email, and _YOU SHOULD TOO_

Birnbaumj@washpost.com

You can aslo get email to any author that appears in the WaPo by writing to:

ombudsman@washpost.com

And putting “Please Forward to: xxx” in the subject line. You can also send bia complaints to the ombudsman.

“People are following the blogs now because they are doing the news medias job.”

For all its faults, I don’t see the MSM as inconsequential. The blogs analyze the news, but the MSM is still doing the majority of the legwork. I see it more as a symbiotic relationship with the blogs keeping the MSM on its toes ;)

I love Harpers, I love FDL (I know what a firedog is but why did you throw it in the lake?). LL may be verbose but he gets it right in the end. I like this blog in particular for the feeling that we’re all in a good conversation, something which seems to be taboo in the last few years. Conversation? where are the insults, the half-baked ideas, the UNINFORMED OPINIONS offered as facts? Somewhere else, thank you very much.

Back in the day, one could sometimes call an editorial writer on the phone to vent or agree or offer a broader perspective. One could write letters to newspapers that others readers would actually get to read. Not so easy anymore. One college in SoCal has a semester of English Comp devoted to writing letters to the editor that will actually get published.

No wonder we feel as if there’s nothing we can do about the galloping crud taking over everything.

My father, doG rest his soul, was an ethical journalist from the days when they knew their job was to speak truth to power. He never accepted gifts, did not socialize with the politicos even if they were friends from his state government days. Years ago we used to argue about the consolidation of media in the hands of just a few corporations with agendas that perhaps did not include an informed public. He assured me that his beloved journalism would never let that happen. If he hadn’t insisted on cremation, he would be spinning in his grave about now.

I’m still amazed that some in the MSM are still lagging far behind the blog-o-sphere in timely news distribution.

I’m constantly amazed that several MSNBC’s correspondents (Keith, Joe, Dan) don’t blog more frequently. They have the national media at their finger tips, yet they seem reluctant to daily update their sites… for what reason are they so tardy?

That is why sites like this and TPM or KOS are so valuable for timely news information and relevant discussions. (By the time Chris Mathews starts talking about some topic – the blog-o-sphere has already had that discussion and is pushing the news quest into new directions, not waiting for some party hack to spin it his/her way…)

However, the key to all this is – relevance and the quality of the postings. The insight and thoughts posted (I believe) is the main reason for successful sites (comments sections tend to not to that important, excuse me whilst I post this comment.)

It isn’t enough to just throw things against the blog wall – it must have timely relevance and add something to the discussion.

We’re seeing more of the MSM move in the Blog direction. I read today that newspapers with interactive sections are actually more successful and are attracting more readers.

So you go girl(s) – keep up the great work.

YouÂ’ve become the must read blog.

PS – Nice logo.

I am one of Harper’s and one of yours.
Me too.
I love Lapham, but his Notebook pieces have begun to sound the same. It will be interesting to see what the transfusion does.

Me three.

I’ve been a longtime devotee of Harper’s…, but they’re not keeping my attention as much these days. The long pieces feel both over-wordy and ivory-towerish.

That’s an excellent point. And they more often than not leave me temporarily bummed about humanity.

FDL is a totally different experience. The interactivity is amazing.

Academic writing and publishing is as dysfunctional as the MSM in a different way, and blogs also provide a way for academia to reconnect with the real world (in addition to producing stultified prose through months of filtering for an audience of six. Just venting ;)

alvord:

instead, you ought to direct any correspondence to an editor with the request they forward to him. copy the ombudsman too.

I agree with the apples and oranges posters.

Nothing in the blog world touches what Harper’s provides. Yet. But I can’t say I’d want to read the folio-length pieces on my computer either.

It’s fine to tout instant feedback (which is, for me, wholly unecessary if the writing is good/informative to begin with) and up-to-the-minute news gathering and opinion…but those have nothing to do with the quality, utility, worth or entertainment of Harper’s anyway.

I have frequently used the model of “peer review” for what we do here. I think it fits. I have also refrred to and thought of this community, and the blogosphere in general, as a collective mind.

I would agree with green lantern as well, in that the experience of participation is empowering. Some schmuck like me can make some comments or observations, see them reflected in the next front page entry, and see that front page entry influence the collective progressive Internet mind which in turn influences media narrative.

emptywheel and jane have frequently observed that we have guests who are active in the process of media narrative formation in the MSM, and I suppose they know these things from confidential conversations, from email and from sitemeter data.

I do wonder, however, if these folks make it into the comments, or if they remain on the front page. Other than Olbermann’s crew, I doubt they wade into the comments. On the other hand, I think we in the progressive blogosphere asically write Keith’s show for him and do musch of his research for him, which of course is fine with me.

I told her that newspapers edit letters heavily, and for the most part, nothing interesting gets through. I think everyone who has written in the post and the comments proves the value of blogs, and the aforementioned interactivity thereof.

But they READ THEIR MAIL. They may be beholden to corporate interests… BUT THEY READ THEIR MAIL, and to a certain extent… They cannot survive without their readers. They have to be responsive on critical issues or the bottom line drops out as readers stop consuming their product.

It is wrong to say that just because they are not perfect, they should not be vigoriously addressed. The need input from thinking people.

Let them edit to their hearts content. If they are editing, they are also reading and responding. Sooner or later, enough reader input generates editorials, then investigative reporting.

But the process in this day and age takes time, and input from people like us.

http://fusioner.proboards60.co…..1131129004

Jane-

I first started reading comments at Huffington post. It was filled with very insightful comments and I learned alot from it. But it started to become totally trashed and I quit reading it. But before I quit, a commenter mentioned this site and I linked and I’ve been here ever since.

What I think is so much better than print is:

1.Your (Janes,Reddheads) voice is more a voice of a speaker and not a writer. Less politically correct.

2.When I read something, I can get immediate feedback if not from you then another commenter.

3.The comments alone are very newsworthy and add alot to the story. A thousand minds are working together to write the story.But this is only because this blog hasn’t been tainted by the idiots who invaded sites like Huffington Post, and many others.

When I read print there is no feedback at the moment I need it.

4.My friends don’t care to talk about this stuff. It interests me but not them, so these sites are a place to talk about my interests with others who share them with me.

I am very impressed by the spirit of community among the liberal bloggers I read and their vast audience. I love it when you refer to your “colleague” emptywheel. I love that you might reference 6 other blogs in your post. History will record that as the mainstream media fell victim to corporatization, out of the abyss emerged a new force to be reckoned with–the bloggers!

One problem with blogs is that the authors don’t get paid…it’s also why they can be so compelling in that they are not beholden to corporate influences.

Precisely. There has been a huge paradigm shift in our perception of what constitutes accountability in news and opinion pieces. Blogs have become the new watchdogs of truth and propaganda.

I didn’t fail to notice that the commentators attempting to downplay the importance, service, and yes -influence- in their own right that blogs provide, (regardless if it’s apples and oranges), do not list a blog of their own but certainly jumped right in here to take advantage of THIS service of the ability to instantly plug in their own viewpoint.

Trust in the MSM evaporated. I trust very precious few in the current MSM. I DO resonate to Jane and Reddhead’s honesty. I do resonate to the ability of blogs to disect humanity with everyday real dialog, how we all talk in real life. The vetted, vanilla, paid MSM will never provide that.

I hope Jeff Birnbaum of the Washington Post reads your blog. I read his article about the Washington DC money scandals in today’s WaPo and wanted to write him an angry letter (he made it sound like the Dems were just as guilty of taking bribes as the repugs). When I went to the WaPo contact page where they have the email addresses of their writers I couldn’t find his name. It is my understanding writers at the Post have the option of giving out their email addresses to readers. So, either he is afraid of reader feedback or he can’t be bothered. The MSM mindset in a nutshell.

I’m sympathetic to union’s comment about blogs leaving less of the thinking to the reader. Clearly that can happen, but really it all depends on how much you put into your reading, whether in print or blog form.
Personally I find blog’s WAY too distracting, regardless of the quality. Too much information is like a kind of noise pollution, and gets in the way of clear thinking.

Harpers has such deep pockets one would think they would be calling Andrea Mitchell a hypocrite and a shill too, and they are not.

I’d contest that. Their criticism of the media and the war has been exceptionally good, and Lewis Lapham has been hard-core against the MSM and DC establishment press for years; his monthly editorials always lambast those clowns.

Ditto, ditto and more dittos! (are these then Megadittos? If so, never mind.)

OT (Did I miss this in an earlier thread). But Plame is leaving the CIA:

http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/58558.htm

I wonder how this might affect the Wilsons’ ability to sue Rove and Libby…

“The thing that’s interesting to me is how blogs have begun to flourish and have an impact on the discourse at the same moment that the fossilized mask begins to crumble away from the gout-ridden face of the corrupt, careerist MSM.”

Yeow. That mental image is going to stay with me all afternoon. That phrase immediately called into mind Dorian Grey….

Ick.

Harper’s is one of my absolutely favorite reads–I jones for it as soon as I finish each month’s issue, and I find it indespensible.

I feel the same way about firedoglake, but the experience is different. Harper’s is like church where I sit and listen, whereas firedoglake is hanging out and chatting with the barroom innalectuals.

Regarding Anonymous’s post: People are following the blogs now because they are doing the news medias job.

The media is capable of doing their job, but they choose not to – that’s not where they think the money is. Blogs are interesting and important because they are much less beholden to financial interests unless they’re sensationalist blogs looking for ad revenue.

But without the financial incentive to blog, the remaining purpose is passion… and it’s usually not a simple passion for truth. As Jane mentioned there are numerous talking pointy-heads (like my double entendre? I’m so proud :)) whose passion is the political side they’ve already chosen, and the “debate” remains one-sided.

My question for Jane is: Is it inherently contradictory to imagine independent media as ever becoming mainstream? Bill Moyer’s NOW comes to mind, but I wonder if the MSM could ever find a way to make a profit from the quest for truth?

While rough language may not add much to the substantive content of blogs, it’s often a huge part of the fun. It can also cut through a lot of BS in the same way that a good political cartoon does. How to express the totality of Jonah Goldberg’s contemptibility, for example? A descriptive epithet that paints a picture for the reader, of course. How many words would you have to waste describing Jonah when “Doughy Pantload” says so much.

http://fusioner.proboards60.co…..1131129004

People… I think your posts are outstanding. Truly, outstanding.

But we know these essential truths. We actually have the strange task of educating the MSM.

I see about 10 posts above me that should be sent directly to every media outlet on the Media Resources list.

There is an expression for what I see you guys doing… But I won’t call people names ;)

http://fusioner.proboards60.co…..1131129004

^^^ COPY YOUR POSTS AND SEND THEM HERE!!! ^^^

All I can say is, I come here and to other blogs for information and analysis. Cognitive thinking. The MSM doesn’t give facts, they give you their notes, here and on other quality blogs you get facts and analsis, which incites thought, then you form your own opinions….A disjointed post, but what I am thinking.

A single blog may be homogenous, but as a group they are heterogonous. That in itself isn’t bad (or if it is, someone needs something about those bastards at Golf Digest.) But it doesn’t exactly help the free flow of ideas.

thought the comment on ken mehlman’s printing press was pretty funny. i think that’s one reason why i really like your blog, there’s consisently good humor to be found.

emptywheel — I do think you are right about blogs reshaping the context within which news is made. Turn on the TV any day and the blogs make them all crazy (okay, O’Reilly was already crazy, but Media Matters really gets under his skin).

T – yes, the fact that we are not beholden to corporate influences does give us the luxury to indulge in a certain brand of candor that expensive print media cannot, although since Harpers has such deep pockets one would think they would be calling Andrea Mitchell a hypocrite and a shill too, and they are not. There is still a certain “member of the club” thing that is going on even though they don’t have to justify their bottom line to Rupert Murdoch.

garyb — the link thing is very powerful. If someone does it well you can see where all their information came from, it usually takes another 45 minutes or so to link up the background on a big post but it allows your readers to vet your stuff. It makes me crazy reading online editions of the WaPo, NYT and others because they don’t have links and then I have to go hunting for them for background.

zeppo — Loren is my brother-in-law, a former newscaster from Tulsa who used to post more in the early days. He still occasionally jumps into the comments section.

Blogs are now my number 1 source of news.Huff post 1st for the headlines, and then FDL for critical commentary.
The MSM has got quite a lot of catching up do– if possible. Blogs will put an end to spin.

No offense. I love your blog. But you have a long way to go until you reach Harper’s stage.

I send a letter to Harpers almost every day. They have written material that sounds like it came right out of letters I have sent :p

No offense. I love your blog. But you have a long way to go until you reach Harper’s stage.

my first blogging experience was w/billmon. i can’t even put words to how he changed my life. the community formed by bloggers moves what becomes important in the news. the public creates what floats to the top.

what would be considered far left a couple years ago is now very middle of the road. bloggers have cracked into info otherwise shared by the brainy reporter types in backrooms of bars and made those musings available for public consumption w/out some corporate editor. pricessless. plus the quaility of writing.. thats why i come here. thanks redd and jane. now, whens billmon posting again, i miss him!

It is a two way street on SOME blogs. You can get banned on VRWC blogs for pointing out simple truths like Nixon got us out of Viet Nam and Prescott Bush was anti-war. Note to Self: avoid any use of irony when commenting on Right Wing blogs.

That said, I was impressed that RedState covered Cunningham’s resignation. Not a word on PowerLine and BlogsForBush. The only mention there of any Duke was the blaming of liberals for David Duke. Just wierd.

The thing that’s interesting to me is how blogs have begun to flourish and have an impact on the discourse at the same moment that the fossilized mask begins to crumble away from the gout-ridden face of the corrupt, careerist MSM.

I look at the brainpower on this blog, at the debates, the exchange of ideas that interactive blogging makes possible and my mind reels.

They used to call these things “salons” back in Enlightenment Paris. You may snicker at that — but you can’t deny that the potential is there.

It comes not a moment too soon, given the reduction of the Fourth Estate to an echo chamber. Rock on, Jane and Redd.

Intimacy. It’s about closeness and relationships. I can’t have one with Harper’s, even if I do read their content. But I can have one with folks who both write and read the content here.

Media that originated in a brickwall print-era simply doesn’t have the flexibility that blogs have. These two are not direct replacements for each other; print-era media forms a basis for the analysis and conversation we have here.

Blogs also act as filters; there’s so much information out there, need to cut through and read only that which “trusted users” screen for me. I trust Jane and Redd implicitly, they see what I see in media, but they also bring added value from their individual perspectives. I might not have read certain print-era media articles had they not been analyzed and discussed here, explaining why there are more readers of FireDogLake than there are of Harper’s. Why go to Harper’s if Jane and Redd have already saved me the hassle? I can read something else instead.

Or more FireDogLake.

The blog may be replacing the old intellectual skill of critical thinking. I don’t read newspapers and magazines to be entertained but blogs are entertaining because of other viewpoints on the same issue. Yet to make the conclusion that blogs inform is misplaced; the reader, according to the old rules, must inform her/himself via critical thinking.

Therefore, an earlier comment above that blogs are in the “sound byte” era has validity in that blogs are doing a superficial critical thinking task and leaving readers further void of mastering that important skill.

Blogs do serve a purpose, but elevating them to a level greater than something else is akin to the high tech bubble remaking economic rules. Foundations and parameters remain essential requirements of any new paradigm.

Yeah, blogs are great for dialogue. But they tend to be heterogonous and encourage an insular group of viewpoints. Many (not necessarily this one) become exclusive coteries. “I’d never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.”
Harry Cheddar | 11.29.05 – 11:46 am | #

I think the word you meant was homogenous and I have to agree, most people here and elsewhere tend to be of similar (not identical, but similar) mind.

not really a criticism, WaPo readers generally don’t subscribe to the Moonie paper (see I’m doing it too)

anyway, I’m just glad there are indeed forae like these out there on both sides that don’t stoop to hysterical Freeper-style ranting. Anybody remember the political threads on TableTalk a few years ago? Yeesh, name calling does not equal discussion or debate.

In my book anyway.

The thing is, there are many popular blogs where the author(s)/contributor(s) either don’t allow comments or don’t seem to care at all about what their readers think. There’s also, of course, the problem of getting so much feedback that it’s impossible and overwhelming to read or respond to all of it.

Then there’s the problem I have with my site: for whatever reason, only maybe a handful of the 1,500 visitors I get each month ever responds. Of those, most are people I know personally.

I think blogs are /capable/ of much more interactivity, but I don’t believe it’s always the case that people–either writers or readers–will participate. In that way, I feel there are a lot of blogs that are trying to be more like magazines, and the only distinction, really, is the medium.

Benjamin Franklin would instantly “get it” with respect to blogs : “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”

local newspapers were the blogs of his era

Blogs are The Citizen Press of our era & are badly needed

Carry on !

“…It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins…” – Benjamin Franklin

The Psychotic Patriot’s girlfriend asked me yesterday why I don’t write a letter to the editor about my posts on Diebold lying boldly and all that insanity. I told her that newspapers edit letters heavily, and for the most part, nothing interesting gets through. I think everyone who has written in the post and the comments proves the value of blogs, and the aforementioned interactivity thereof.

Roger Hodge is a true slime, like lapham before him. The magazine is truly remarkable, but in order to run it you have to be a jackass. Hodge is one for the books.

Comments, with their ability to offer quick corrections or amplifications, do contribute to the quality of blogs, but I also think that the ability to use hyperlinks to connect to many sources within a single posting is also important. And, obviously, blogs are complementary to the print media, which are extensively excerpted, studied, contradicted, etc., in blogs.

So far as foul language is concerned, yes, some blogs have a lot of that. I don’t consider myself a troll, and I don’t enjoy gratuitous profanity and obscenity: it’s tiring and (generally) it’s cliched.

I’ve been a longtime devotee of Harper’s and LL, but they’re not keeping my attention as much these days. The long pieces feel both over-wordy and ivory-towerish.

My experience with running a polling analysis site (state poll meta-analysis) during the 2004 campaign was that the Weblog format is well suited for interactive feedback. Every change I made to the analysis and algorithms triggered many emails, which I used as a source of critical feedback. This feedback improved the project tremendously.

The whole process reminds me of academic peer review, in which commenters (often anonymous) offer criticisms of weaknesses in your work. In the case of Weblogs it’s absolutely critical, because bloggers often do not report primary information by contacting sources or doing exhaustive research.

A blog that uses feedback can be a high-quality source of information. In this regard, blogs that do not allow comments are often not a very interesting use of the medium. (An exception is Josh Marshall’s talkingpointsmemo, but that’s because he is a reporter).

However, the success of a blog as a new journalistic form depends on having a fair referee. In this regard, firedoglake does an excellent job. You have generated a really remarkable example of collective news analysis, possibly one for the history books.

jojo

Some of those powerful people are here in the blogosphere, too. Even here on this blog.

The difference is they’re only listened to so long as their thoughts have merit above and beyond those of the other people on the blog. They’re judged, by and large, on their thoughts, rather on the aura of power they may have accrued.

Excellent blogs like this one with quality threads give me hope for the future.

Combined with links, search engines, free repositories of information… as long as we have electricity the sky is the limit.

One problem with blogs is that the authors don’t get paid…it’s also why they can be so compelling in that they are not beholden to corporate influences.
The one critical criterion is that author(s) must be intellectually honest with themselves and their readers, and vice versa

I personally like this blog because I am able to knock down the “false choices”, “straw man” arguments, and other modus operandi (please correct my latin tense agreement) to limit intellectual debate of the under/mis informed right wingnuts.

Blogs are just like everything else- there are the good the bad and the ugly. The blogs that make me THINK and allow me to contribute and exchange thoughts, links, and sometimes just crazy notions are in my mind the most enriching.

Jane you rock but in this case your analysis is wrong. People are following the blogs now because they are doing the news medias job. Who believes any of the info coming out right now on Bush’s corruption would be coming out now if bloggers weren’t forcing the media to discuss it?

I am one of Harper’s and one of yours.
Me too.
I love Lapham, but his Notebook pieces have begun to sound the same. It will be interesting to see what the transfusion does.
I blog because I am a smartass filled with loathing for the fascisti who currently run our lives.

Jane, youÂ’ve got it exactly right: the organic dialogue is the thing.

In addition, from our POV as commenters, the blog actually empowers the commenter, as citizen and political animal, by giving him/her the ability to take an active part in the flow of information and the formation of opinion and judgement about all sorts of issues near and far.

In contrast, the op-ed pages and letters section of the media are much more restricted and create the appearance of an exclusive club. Think, for instance, of the immense power and privilege granted to the stupidities of Krauthammer, Will, Novak, et al, to which the average reader has no ability to respond and offer a critique.

Jane,

I believe your analysis and insight on most topics you post about are dead on. Redd also.
A person definately comes away from firedoglake better informed in my opinion.
That being said, I guess I’ll go buy that damn coffee mug now and support the women I love.

Yeah, blogs are great for dialogue. But they tend to be heterogonous and encourage an insular group of viewpoints. Many (not necessarily this one) become exclusive coteries. “I’d never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.”

I would make a further distinction between blogs allowing comments and those where the article authors are active in the comments. The latter are much richer.

Recently I was approached at work to ask my opinion on the County Manager starting a blog. My response was that our County Manager doesn’t write any of his own statements anyway and that it would be sort of pointless. I mean, he already has an intranet and internet site at his disposal. The person I was speaking to had no clue. He just wanted to be ‘hip’ and ‘have a blog’. Idiot.

Blogs have allowed us to fill the black hole of disaccountability with light and transparency. Interaction, curiosity, analysis, dogged determination-these are the opportunities and challenges blogs offer us all. For this to grow it will take all of us. I’ve always felt that the strength of a democracy was the great debate where strong sides collide and gain, even grudgingly, from each other. That is the best that we can be. Onward toward a better tomorrow!

“Sound bite era”?!

Boy, are you reading the same things I am? The analysis done of who did what to whom over the Libby indictment here was incredible.

Sound bite, by hinney…..

I believe you’re absolutely right! The fact is that a person’s ability to respond to the information they’re acquiring and to be responded to by others creates a sense of community not afforded to other media. It also has the positive effect of reaffirming that if all that agree act on a premise, something may actually be accomplished. Stuff like sending letters to the editor on topics like certain provisions of the Patriot’s Act that make us less free, or torture, or … All in all, I think blogging is a great way to make the silent majority heard.

I am one of Harper’s and one of yours. Not at all the same. You guys are not Lewis, and you don’t provide the depth of their articles.

They don’t provide a lot that you do.

Apples and oranges.

You are more the sound bite era. But that’s not criticism.

We are at a point where the MSM has really let us down. There are many reasons for it. Blogs are now ever more so reliable a source of good info, and much of it is from the comments.
Really though, as we all know FDL is in a league of its own. More and more of my national news comes from here.

And a lot of it is language too (even if your trolls do hassle you about your wonderful aptitude with a curse). We don’t talk like newspapers do. We don’t logic like they’re structured. We don’t speak in two sentence paragraphs of boilerplate.

So even if you buy that hard copy is the origin of ideas (which I don’t–I’d phrase it differently), those “ideas” don’t make sense until you read it in blog format.

I do have a question about this site, tho, that I have been dying to ask, and since this seems to be a thread without a deadly serious topic, I’ll go ahead and ask.

Where’s Loren? Who’s Loren? How come I’ve never seen anything blogged with her byline?

Just curious…..

Ditto what Zeppo said. I’ll add that the blogs (particularly FDL!) have had more news content than any of the MSM outlets, which seem to be content in their rolls as shills for the Bush administration.

Only trouble with this place – my comments always tend to be “yow, what Jane said!”
:)

it’s instantly vetted by thousands of people

I think that’s crap, Jane. Total, complete crap.

Uh, wait a second. No I don’t.

Not only does dialogue breed more committed readers (in all senses of the word), but it goes a long way to create the context that all meaning depends on. If I don’t understand you, I’ll keep nagging you until I do.

Jane u rock!

As an outside observer, it seems to me that the hard copy folks are the origin of the ideas. Blogs, then, facilitate the ideas by creating instant distribution and elaboration of same.

Now and then, blogs may bring the idea first by a “breaking news” format or an original written paper/essay/article. For the most part, though, blogs are the secondary commentators while hard copy is the primary commentator.

You describe it pretty much as I would. To my mind, a blog is alive, a newpaper dead. A blog is energetic, a newspaper lethargic. Reading many blogs, I get much information that is in the newspapers but at the same time it is criticized, corrected, ammended by hundreds of curious, interested people and, if appropriate, thrown away as junk. On the blogs I can look around until I have the feeling that I somewhat understand what is going on. This blog is one of the gems I look at every day.

thanks EPU, that one was getting old fast

I think that what you said about blogs is true of yours, Jane. The comments, links, and discussions here are some of the best on the web.

That cannot be said for many, even ones that you’d think would know better (are you listening, Atrios?) Geez, you pop up the comments sections and all you get are frists, firsts, insults, and bad jokes.

Jane, Redd, and Loren have the most civilized blog on the planet.

Politics is like the Muppet Show.

Blogs are Statler and Waldorf.

Mu ha ha to EPU (see last thread)

I just discovered blogs about two months ago. What a great invention! I love them. I agree regarding the ability to give feedback directly to the author. But, even more, I like the hugely interesting and compelling comments (at least at this site) from all the other posters. Some great stuff.

To some folks, “I blog therefore I am.” It may be their best and only chance to make themselves heard in the cry and din of the media madhouse.

and they are also like laproscopic laser surgery … focusing the coherent light to burn away the malignancy …

Mrs. K8 and suntzu,

y’all are too sweet …
your compliments and encouragements are appreciated: thanks.
FDL, TNH, needlenose, jeralyn, laura rosen, et al do so much more than “blog”.
they, and the comment contributors, help to heal our psychic wounds.
they are like a new component to our national political immune system:
antibodies targeting the pathogens.

we, together, as the ants, attacking large offenders; bringing down the beast.

Therefore …

We.
Shall.
Overcome.

keep hope alive,
~ ydj