Posted 2/17/2005 05:34:00 PM by Douglas

As a self-confessed blogger, I'm getting quite sick of this "Main-Stream Media/Blogger" crap. On the heels of my earlier post comes Peggy Noonan, canonized sycophant for the Bush Administration, and obvious stalwart for all things Republican. It's shit like this that make me tired. Tired because she has all the insight and clairvoyance of a buggy-whip manufacturer circa 1914. Are newspapers going to go away? No. Are idiot baby-boomers like you going to lose your job? Sure. Do blogs force you to read them, as being the only print media in a particular outlet, like newspapers do? No. Can you click the next link while you're on-line quicker than Peggy Noonan can run to her editor to beg for another extension? Sure. Are you as sick to death of this "question and answer" format as I am? Probably. Here's the meat:

They use the tools of journalists (computer, keyboard, a spirit of inquiry, a willingness to ask the question) and of the Internet (Google, LexisNexis) to look for and find facts that have been overlooked, ignored or hidden. They look for the telling quote, the ignored statistic, the data that have been submerged. What they are looking for is information that is true. When they get it they post it and include it in the debate. This is a public service.

Well here's the deal, Peggy. LexisNexis and of course Google are available to everyone. I know you hold some sort of esteemed credentials of the fourth estate as "A Journalist" but here's a news flash. You report what other people accomplish. You don't need a degree from Harvard to do that, and obviously the web is teaching you that there's someone in Des Moines that's doing it a hell of a lot cheaper than you are.

And they fact check. Sometimes.