The Continuing War on Bloggers
Today's New York Times features an article prominently placed on the front page of the business section detailing the recent fallout over the resignation of a "top news executive at CNN" due to the diligence of a few bloggers who "broke" a story that wasn't going to be covered by the "mainstream" media. This comes hot on the heels of the "forced" resignation of Dan Rather due to the scandal over President Bush's service records from his time serving in the Air National Guard, again as a result of the efforts of a determined bunch of bloggers to get the story right. For good reason, this is providing warranted attention for such grass-roots initiatives that are having a very real-world affect on matters big and small. As I've written before, there seems to be a sense of overwhelming frustration and, for lack of a better term, outright fear of the power that bloggers have amassed over that past few years. If it's not labeling bloggers as delusional for their far-sightedness and bloated senses of their own self worth, then it's a smear campaign that strives to label the actions of a diligent few comparable to that of a lunatic fringe drowned in political partisanship, or as in the case of this article an "angry mob" or a "lynch mob."

I've never been a huge proponent of blogs, and I still cling to my assertion that most serve little purpose other than to allow the writers to post the most mundane observations and egotistical ramblings that seek to elevate their own self-worth. In this case, though, it seems that these bloggers are legitimately serving a purpose, that being to get stories reported either correctly or covered in the first place. The reason the "mainstream" media seems to feel the need to degrade bloggers as part of a fringe group or quacks with an ideological agenda is that they would, without any sense of pressure, drag out their own investigations and continue their noncoverage of "newsworthy" events because there would be no outside pressure to do so. Any group with newfound power is eager to exploit that fact, and bloggers are no different. This comes from a sense that perhaps the flickering flame of notoriety will be snuffed out before too long, so it better to "burn out than to fade away." Even so, it seems like an unjust response by the "mainstream" media to downgrade the efforts of bloggers who are basking in their newfound status as regulators on the plain. Off the cuff remarks, such as labeling bloggers as part of a "lynch mob" serve no purpose other than to accurately reflect how tenuous a grasp on matters "real" journalists have and betray their own lack of self-confidence in their ability to compete with the masses.