"The vast majority of the blogs are just hysteric, polemical noise"

"There's no shame, really, left in American life," writes Gregory of The Belgravia Dispatch, dismissing the potential of bloggers to fill the void left by what The Cunning Realist calls "the deterioration in both journalistic standards and the industry's financial viability." TCR writes:

Now more than ever, we desperately need the type of reporter Bob Woodward was thirty years ago when -- instead of becoming venture capitalists or investment bankers -- the smartest and most ambitious students wanted to be journalists. [Really? Who knew?] We seem to be in a "tweener" period for the news media; the old guard has gone insider and abdicated for the veneer of personal and professional stability provided by corporate ownership, but nothing has quite stepped up to fill the role that is absolutely crucial to any democracy. Are blogs part of the answer?

Back to Gregory's assertion that there's no shame left. He's half right. There's no shame left on the left side of the aisle, but there's plenty of shame in that area between the right and the mugged-by-9/11 left. Witness Vice President Dick Cheney's rapier one-liner in his remarks at the Frontiers of Freedom Institute 2005 Ronald Reagan Gala last night:

I’m sorry we couldn’t be joined by Senators Harry Reid, John Kerry, and Jay Rockefeller. They were unable to attend due to a prior lack of commitment. (Laughter.) I’ll let you think about that one for a minute. (Applause.)

Gregory's problem in dismissing bloggers may be that he doesn't see beyond his mouse:

Color me skeptical, re: blogs, at least at this juncture. The most talented writers (guys like Kaus and Sullivan) can doubtless chase a story and hold people's feet to the fire. And you have interesting speciality blogs here and there adding important voices. But the vast majority of the blogs are just hysteric, polemical noise. And how that noise could credibly fill the dangerous void TCR sketches above I really don't see. You need top-flight reporters, at the end of the day, and they can't be sitting around their flats staring at the monitor. They need to be in the field, the real field, chasing down the story.

La di da. Reporters are fine, if they report rather than proseletyze.  But as far as opinion writers, you need to get out into the blogosphere more, Gregory.  You might start by checking out the "new wave of political bloggers challenging Britain's old media pundits" profiled today in the Guardian -- blogged here --  as well as the blogroll over at Open Source Media. Okay, we admit it.  We're sorry the OSM honchos dropped the original Pajamas Media name, much more colorful and memorable than Open Source Media.  Outside of the tech world, how many otherwise savvy folk really know what open source means, anyway? But beyond that, it just doesn't fire the imagination the way PJ Media does. But no one asked us.

Comments

[Teresa]

Run Away! Run Away!... No wait... that's hysterical isn't it!

My my - I just love people who try to lump everyone into one little group. I had no idea I was hysterical or polemical - my apologies to Gregory for creating such a din.

Let me get this straight - if you aren't an "official reporter" (I wonder what makes an official reporter - a job? J-school?) your opinion is just so much noise.

I guess it's a good thing we have Gregory to tell us where our place is... otherwise we might... you know... actually release our opinion to the world. We couldn't have that now could we!

[Asher - Dreams Into Lightning]

Sturgeon's Law:

"90 percent of everything is crap." - Theodore Sturgeon