Newspapers vs. Bloggers

The mainstream media is famously contemptuous of the Internet--on the September 6th Meet the Press, NY Times columnist Tom Friedman called the net "an open sewer." But explain to me how newspapers are better: on September 6th, the Washington Post reported the resignation of Obama environmental adviser Van Jones, quoting his letter and blaming "weeks of pressure from the right over his past activism." The Sydney Morning Herald reprinted the WaPo story under the headline "Right-wing 'lies' force Obama adviser out". Last weekend, Herald columnist Paul Sheehan apologized:

A week ago, the Herald ran a story which, in its essence, was not true. The paper did not know this. It was the unwitting victim of a distortion created at The Washington Post, which produced the original story. The Herald's headline, which reflected the story, said: "Right-wing 'lies' force Obama adviser out".

The story began: "The White House environmental adviser, Van Jones, a towering figure in the environment movement, has resigned after weeks of controversy stemming from his past activism . . . In a statement announcing his resignation, Jones said, 'They [his critics] are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.'"

No. The distortions have come from Jones. . .

[W]hen Jones's past, his vicious rhetoric, his wild conspiracy theories, his Marxist economics and his paucity of managerial experience began to emerge, the same mainstream media, locked into its own political biases, did not want to know about this story, and did not want their audiences to know about the other side of this newly installed green hero.

Prior to Jones's resignation, despite revelation after revelation which made his position untenable, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the major networks, NBC, CBS and ABC, carried not a word. They preferred to be beaten on a big story than to even acknowledge it.

While the Fox News Channel, which drove the Van Jones story, has been one of the biggest media success stories of the past decade, becoming highly profitable and highly influential, during the same decade The New York Times Company has plunged in market value. It is one of numerous once-powerful media companies which would rather die than change an ideological agenda hidden under a false mask of objectivity.

Well, sort of. As USS Neverdock says:

While I'm glad to see them calling the left wing Washington Post out on the Post's "lies", it's ridiculous to claim they were an "unwitting victim". Van Jones was outed by a blogger using Google. If the SMH can't do as well it's time to get out of the business. If they're smart, and it's doubtful they are, they'll stop blindly recycling America's left wing newspapers.

Mark Steyn agrees:

[G]iven what Jonah [Goldberg] calls the "Pravdaesque" coverage of the Acorn/Census Bureau split, it seems undeniable that many U.S. media outlets have decided there's a lucrative niche market in providing news to people who'd prefer to be kept in the dark. It's easy to see why, say, a liberal schoolteacher in Westchester County would rather not have her illusions discombobulated. Less easy to see why so many other "reporters" around the world who repeat the Times/Post line as dutifully as believers reciting the Koran should be so eager to join the club.

Or why the mainstream media still sees bloggers as morons in pajamas. As Goldberg himself notes: "Friedman and Brokaw disparag[ing] the Internet as a useless news medium makes them sound like cranky old monks lamenting that flash-in-the-pan printing press."

The WaPo knows it's doomed. The Times sees some of its flaws. But both will stay biased 'till the end--as an overwhelming majority of Americans recognize.

Advantage: bloggers.

(via American Daughter, Don Surber, Instapundit)