Most members of the commercial media don't want to face what everybody else knows - that as institutions go, that of "the media" is as hated or more so than George W. Bush and the US Congress.
Unfortunately, in recent days, too many bloggers and their commenters have forgotten that truth, too.
Bloggers, in general, claim to understand just how much the public distrusts the media. We bloggers have been "running against the media" from the get-go. It's one of the biggest keys to our success: that readers turn to us instead of the commercial media it distrusts. The one thing that could most rapidly destroy that for us would be if we became, in the public's mind, associated with the same sloppy arrogance which it associates with the media.
That ought to be a no brainer. But in recent days, too many bloggers and their commenters [sic] have aped the worst qualities of the commercial media in such a way as to allow the McCain campaign and the far right to lump us in with the reviled commercial media to make us, too, the receptacle of that public hatred.
It's about the "unvetted diaries," stupid.
It hasn't been just in recent days. The venom directed at Senator Clinton disgusted me (I understand - it started with the MSM). Same for the hatred directed at Senator Obama. The venom of which I speak is that which secreted from the fangs of some of the SCLB's - the So Called Liberal DailyKos and Booman Tribune Blogs, to name two. The hatred of which I speak exploded with atomic enmity from Larry Johnson's No Quarter Blog (Johnson is certainly no liberal; but he was and remains an ardent Clinton supporter).
The rumors-mongering I read (in the comments sections) of some of the SCLB's about who in the Palin family was the mother of Trig was absolutely disgusting, horrifying stuff. Worthy of the Free Republic. When a "news source" or "internet community" puts that kind of speculation out here in cyberspace, where will stay (forever, almost) and subsequently the speculation turns out to be FALSE, at that point the blog hits a junction known as Credibility Gap. Juvenile crap - junior high school crap, high school crap, Jerry Springer crap. And when you've covered yourself with crap - it takes a LOT of scrubbing, a lot of apologizing, a lot of mea culpa's, and a lot of time to have any shot at returning to relevance or legitimacy.
One can wear a DFH tag with pride (to the extent it represents opposing the invasion, occupation and destruction of Vietnam, the supporting of civil rights for African-Americans, of equal pay for equally responsible jobs for women for African-Americans, for Hispanics, for government to PROTECT workers and citizens from corporate pollution, corporate endangerment, and a whole host of issues commonly assumed to be part of the democratic party's core "platform") when it comes to standing up for and speaking out the belief that government ought to serve the common weal.
But when the so-called liberals or progessives start to include smears, lies and character assassination as part of their chatter, count me out. Those tactics are mean-spirited, appealing to the basest instincts.
The unvetted diaries and worse - the unvetted comments - could easily undermine a lot of otherwise decent intentions.
A little civility, please.
For all the MSM's belittling attitudes towards bloggers over the years (interesting all the major newspapers seem to have their own blogs now), it is ironic now that "bloggers in general" are now casually conjoined by the McCain campaign (the Republican party and it's far right dominionist footsoldiers).
When two sides fight in the mud, the side that claims they seek to win the mud fight in order to ressurect a cleaner, safer, nobler past will win the audience UNLESS the other side can make the point, the mud's the reason we're in this fight - the longer they made the rules, the muddier things have become, and we seek to win the fight in order to take away their mud-making machine.
