David did fine work last night on NECN, along with relatively newly-minted bloggers Jon Keller of CBS4 and David Dahl of the Globe.
I’m happy and grateful that the professional media are noticing what’s going on here, and that we have some credibility with them, as Jim Braude professed. I’m bemused by the persistent theme (usually from the pros) that somehow blogs are in competition with professional media. I don’t see it that way. I feel like a broken record saying it, but everyone, especially bloggers are dependent on a fantastic, tough, resourceful professional media. Yes, we do some original reporting here, but we can’t do the jobs of the pros, because we’re not pros. We don’t have the time nor the training. We do bring expertise and experience from our own lives, which can be a useful sounding board for those in the media, politicians, and other folks who may find themselves in a professional “bubble”. (Now, the “blog bubble” is another story altogether …)
There is a huge difference between the constant conservative carping of “liberal bias” and the left’s critique of corporate media. Conservatives want the media to represent their ideology, and to shape their reporting to pre-conceived conservative frames: respect for tradition, hierarchy, money, and power. By and large, liberals want the media to do their jobs: Report the truth and let the chips fall where they may. Liberalism is by nature anti-hierarchical, small-d democratic, inquisitive, and skeptical, resistant to top-down thinking.
Liberal blogs are therefore much friendlier to the endeavor of journalism; even though we may be skeptical or even hostile to how it’s practiced in any given moment. I’m very fond of the line “The truth has a liberal bias”; but in fact, that’s not accurate. At its best, liberalism is naturally flexible enough to accomodate the truth as it’s revealed. That’s why this blog and others call ourselves “reality-based”; and maybe that’s why the liberal blogosphere seems to be lapping the conservatives, as reality in any number of areas (Iraq, global warming) overtakes conservative shibboleths.
So much more reason, then, to be wary of the temptation to construct our own.
david says
the point on bloggers being in “competition” with the professional journalists, one of the points I wanted to make last night but didn’t get a chance to was exactly what Charley says: without the professional media, we could not do what we do here. None of us has the time to skulk around the halls of the State House all day (we’ve all got jobs, after all), and if we did, probably no one would talk to us anyway. I’d say the big 4 around here are AP, the Globe, the Herald, and State House News, and without those sources, what would we talk about here? Almost every BMG post on local politics links to an article from one of those four.
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Blogging, for all the attention it’s getting right now, remains almost entirely a volunteer enterprise. We do it out of a hope that we might manage some influence on the issues that we care about. But the idea that we’re going to be putting the Globe out of business any time soon is silly. (The Globe may go out of business for other reasons, like Craigslist killing classified ads, but that’s another story.)
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
“Conservatives want the media to represent their ideology, and to shape their reporting to pre-conceived conservative frames: respect for tradition, hierarchy, money, and power. By and large, liberals want the media to do their jobs: Report the truth and let the chips fall where they may.”
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Does this hold true if a peerson agrees with any issue that liberals are historically against?
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That statement borders on the Kool-Aid drinkers philosophy.
charley-on-the-mta says
I can’t really tell what part of my statement you regard as Kool-Aid-worthy.
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I suppose as written the statement may be too broad — there are indeed “reality-based” conservatives. But really, conservatives have been working the refs (the press) for decades now, and even created their own pseudo-legitimate media: Fox News et al. I mean, look at the conservative best-sellers over the last few years, and “liberal media” complaints are just a given.
porcupine says
Charley – Back in the good old days of Lou Grant, there was a Mrs. Pyncheon who published, and there was a push-pull of ideas between conservative and liberal. Now, corporations publish, not individuals with a philosophy, and you could print 24 pages of horoscopes as long as the ad revenue remained stable. Now ediotrs, who are by and large promoted liberal reporters, have nothing pushing or holding them back, and media bias became ever more liberal as that stripe of reporting is what editors reward (read ‘Arrogance’ by Bernard Goldberg, an infinitely better book than the bally-hood ‘bias’ for an idea of what I am speaking about). I have a reporter friend who had to leave his job for being too conservitive in his outlook – not his reporting, his OUTLOOK. He didn’t ‘fit in’ in the newsroom for the daily Bush Bash.
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Since we conservatives are resourceful folk, we did indeed CREATE our own news organs instead of banging our head against a brick wall of liberal sneering. And guess what? Fox News has become the most popular new entry in the news arena, bearing out the idea that we HAD popular appeal (beat THAT, Air Amerika!). Conservatives have best sellers because – PEOPLE BUY THE BOOKS! I get Robert Reich for a buck on the remainder table (‘Locked in the Cabinet’ is a classic!).
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Everything you wrote, Charley, lives up to the Japanese saying – But change the name, and the story is about yourself.
andy says
Actually there is plenty of documentation that conservatives make sure all of their books are best sellers by getting the large think tanks and foundations to buy in bulk advance copies to help pad the numbers. That said, clearly the drivel that Coulter just put out was a best seller in its own right. And liberal books (Lies and the Lying Liars that Tell Them is a good example) are liberal books that sell well. Best seller status, at least to me, proves nothing expect for the fact that when it comes to partisan pandering there are plenty of people on each side willing to eat it up. (Disclaimer: I ate up every last bit of Al Franken’s book and loved it!)
charley-on-the-mta says
“Everything you wrote, Charley, lives up to the Japanese saying – But change the name, and the story is about yourself.”
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Well, glad you’re around to tell me so. đŸ™‚ BTW, many moons ago I saw James Watt’s “The Conscience of a Conservative” at Buck-a-Book. Just so you know, you’re not all getting rich from the books.
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Of course, Fox News has vast popular appeal. You’re proving my point for me. It tells a large group of people what they want to hear. Now, I have little doubt that the lib blogs are much the same, and to some degree I meant the post as a warning against the kind of insular thinking that Fox News et al provide.
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BTW, I’d be happy to read specifics about the liberal bias you assert. I’ve read excerpts from Goldberg’s stuff … didn’t seem so hot to me, but what do I know? In any event, I’m pretty sure I don’t want my news tailored to flatter my ideology. As you can see, I’m capable of doing that myself.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
“..liberalism is naturally flexible enough to accomodate the truth as it’s revealed. That’s why this blog and others call ourselves “reality-based”; and maybe that’s why the liberal blogosphere seems to be lapping the conservatives, as reality in any number of areas (Iraq, global warming) overtakes conservative shibboleths.”
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Sounding like you are working for God here Charley. Many conservatives are against the War.
gary says
The original post concludes:
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Unbelieveable. I am frankly stunned to read such doctrine, and am incredulous if I understand that you believe that Conservatives seek to mold media into their view while Liberals somehow rise above the fray and seek the truth.
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Before I label these quotes as ignorant claptrap, please tell me that I’ve interpreted your post incorrectly.
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A conservative’s definition of the philosophy:
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Liberalism: Government should be vital, large, demand and bestow much.
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Conservatism: government should be smaller, less powerful, less demanding of the treasure and liberty of the citizenry.
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Do you agree? I’ve attempted a thoughtful, unbiased and brief definition.
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I can without equivocation tell you that I, as a conservative, do not want the media to represent facts by reporting them through the lens of either ideology. The media should, and usually does, report the facts as it sees them. That’s the training of a journalist.
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As a conservative reader, I read for information and question the reporting, always mindful of bias, and let the chips fall where they may.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Right? And not me.
gary says
Now I do.
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Sorry.
charley-on-the-mta says
… and I guess that’s why you come to a liberal blog to gab. đŸ™‚
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As I said above, perhaps the blanket statement is too broad. But to say that conservatives haven’t tried to mold, finance, and bully the media into reporting favorably on conservative themes and people … Sorry, but do you want examples? Can you name a conservative best-selling book that doesn’t complain about liberal media bias?
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I mean, I don’t blame you personally, Gary. But that’s what’s been happening for what, 30 years?
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BTW, as a liberal, I don’t particularly care if government is large or small. I’d like it to be effective and just.
bob-neer says
“Conservatives want the media to represent their ideology, and to shape their reporting to pre-conceived conservative frames: respect for tradition, hierarchy, money, and power. By and large, liberals want the media to do their jobs: Report the truth and let the chips fall where they may. Liberalism is by nature anti-hierarchical, small-d democratic, inquisitive, and skeptical, resistant to top-down thinking.”
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Liberalism is just as intolerant an ideology as any other: you must accept a diversity of viewpoints, for example, or we will resist you. This is not to say liberalism is identical to other ideologies, just that it too has a certain absolutism. I’m not sure whom you would consider definitonal liberals but Roosevelt and JFK, for example, were not anti-hierarchical or particularly democratic so far as I can tell (ask the 1960 voters of West Virginia). If you mean philosophers, I don’t find a tremendous resistance to top-down thinking in the writings of Kant or Rawls: they present structured arguments that, they argue, must be followed.
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The reason I call BMG a “reality based blog” is because we draw our arguments from observation rather than indoctrination. I consider that approach pragmatic and utilitarian — not liberal or conservative, as those terms are normally bandied about here.
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The reason the liberal blogosphere is lapping the conservative one, in my judgment, is because the conservative policies implemented by Bush and his cronies, are not working well; not because of some innate friendliness on the part of liberals to the endeavor of journalism (whatever that is!).
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Of course, all of this is really beside the point. The real reason we all love BMG so much, of course, is that it feeds our vanity: we love to see our handles in print, as it were. “An honest man in politics shines more there than he would elsewhere,” as Mark Twain wrote. Where else could such a sorry pack as we are look so good?
charley-on-the-mta says
Actually, I find you agreeing with many of my points: The discrediting of Bush’s policies is indeed reality-based, and certainly consistent with liberalism. I absolutely contend that New Deal-type liberalism is at its heart pragmatic and utilitarian.
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As far as liberal absolutism … the possibly “authoritarian” nature of the New Deal or JFK’s willingness to deal in skullduggery in the 1960 election have a lot more to do with the nature of power than with liberalism as it’s held by jes’ folks.
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I think that liberal “political correctness” is a terribly unfortunate thing, by which viewpoints are assessed not on their merits but on how closely they adhere to certain orthodoxies. That’s been a real black mark on the liberal tradition of skepticism.
bob-neer says
The New Deal was quite authoritarian, certainly not “resistant to top-down thinking.” Supporters of freedom for women to choose on abortion, liberal in that they support choice, are rarely skeptics about the worthiness of their approach. Liberalism “anti-hierarchical, small-d democratic, inquisitive, and skeptical, resistant to top-down thinking?” I do disagree. But, more effective than the alternatives? Absolutely.
charley-on-the-mta says
I don’t think people having strong opinions is necessarily authoritarian. And indeed the pro-choice position is anti-authoritarian, don’t you think? “Hands off my body”, etc.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Except if you disagree. A whole new seperate law, just for those who disgree. No free speech for you. Barney Frank and the ACLU understand the danger of buffer zones. Kool-Aid drinkers do not.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
He wants His Job back.
You are the king of unwelcome criticism. You are the first to take it personal. (Ernie gets personal, but doesn’t take it personal). Now you shout out that you are the most reasonable person within a group that only allows reasonable and open-minded people. Hmmmm.
At the same time you charge those that disagree with you as wanting only to influence the media. Yet those that agree with you don’t influence media. You dont have to. Because you are Good and Right.
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Was that Rootin’Tootin’ Razberry you were drinking?
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Maybe your a Zarex guy?
porcupine says
goldsteingonewild says
You wrote:
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1. Who is the “we”? The frequent post-ers, or Charley-Bob-David?
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2. Observation?
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Holding out the obvious possibility of self-deception, I think of myself as “reality-based.” But what happens is pretty much that I’ve now shaped many of my views using my “total amount of reality observed.” So with each issue that comes on the table, I’m still responding from the same general framework. Sure, I’ll change little by little, but probably not in big ways over the next couple years.
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For example, since latest Big Dig scandal, I have no NEW direct observation of anything pertinent. I have the same “direct observations” as I did a few months ago – like a little first-hand experience with public bidding.
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Similarly, with the latest Boston crimes, I still have roughly the same first-hand experiences with reality – i.e., just one new data point or “direct observation”…via a student whose brother got shot and killed in June – as before.
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I certainly don’t perceive myself as “indoctrinated,” but it’s not like I’m bringing a whole bunch of fresh observations to the table for each new discussion. I don’t think many BMG post-ers do either.
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While “indoctrinated” sounds pejorative, I’d suggest that many on BMG have a fairly consistent viewpoint, and therefore their/our arguments are reasonably predictable, based on “observation-informed viewpoint.”
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EBIII, of course, being an exception. Hard to predict!