Call of the Wired

18 Feb 2005 Monmouth Daily Review Atlas

The internet world is still a little bit new to me. Anybody who knows me can tell you that my passion for words is in the so-called “hard copy” world. I worked in book stores for more than a decade, because the smell of ink -- be it on newsprint or glossy page -- was, to me, more enticing than the smell of fresh-baked bread. I eagerly awaited each daily delivery, filling my off-duty time with all the news that was put into print. Since those days, though, I have come to the astounding realization that my old, printed world is crumbling, and it’s taking the old news guard with it. More astonishing still, I have reached the conclusion that the fall of the Written Empire may turn out to be a very good thing.

I don’t expect publishers to stop printing in my lifetime, and, in fact, I doubt that there will ever come a time when nobody will know what books are. A book continues to be something of a sacred, unalterable trust. It can still breathe life into moribund imaginations, years after it was first penned. But the face of news media is changing forever. The day when this little paper stops getting dropped at people’s doors is likely not distant. Perhaps within a generation, the printed copy is likely to cease going to press, in favor of the online subscription edition. Even the most powerful traditional news media sources are finding themselves slowly phased out of existence. They’re being nibbled to death by bloggers.

For some of us entering the realm of fogeydom, the first time we heard the term “blogger” was in the wake of the scandal at CBS, in which Dan Rather and the rest of the top echelon in the news department chose to air an insupportable story, with forged documents, the weekend before the national election. If it had been allowed to go unchecked, a blatantly false report might well have negatively influenced the election. But dozens -- even hundreds -- of people who run their own sites on the web did their own research, producing a mountain of evidence to prove that (a) the documents were forged, and (b) many in the CBS news offices suspected they were faked, yet they still chose to run the story.

These warriors of truth, the folks described by one news “expert” as a bunch of “guys sitting around in their pajamas”, are often experts in varied fields (such as law, criminology, handwriting analysis, history, physics, military sciences, etc.) who spend their spare time running web logs, hence they are web loggers -- “bloggers”, for short. And these bloggers have been VERY busy, of late. Aside from exposing “Rathergate,” they were the first to break the news of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean -- even scooping the regional online news sites. They were instrumental in bringing the positive news from Afghanistan and Iraq (yes, there IS good news from Iraq, and has been, since well before the election).

Most recently, bloggers brought to light the bad behavior of another mainstream news media chieftain. When Eason Jordan attended a conference in Davos, Switzerland, he was there to represent CNN as its chief news executive, and, in that capacity, he stood before an international gathering and accused the United States Marines of deliberately targeting journalists for death. Congressman Barney Frank asked him for evidence, to support Jordan’s accusations, and Jordan seemed to backpedal somewhat. Jordan has made these accusations repeatedly in international forums, and nobody has called him to task for it. Until now.

Within minutes of his opening his mouth, Jordan’s words were put out onto the internet by an attendee of the conference who keeps a weblog. Demands for Jordan to present evidence or apologize to the marines for spreading malicious tales started flying through the ether. Immediately after that, the real war began. The vast majority of the bloggers said they didn’t necessarily want Jordan removed from his post, if he had solid evidence to support his statements -- indeed, had he produced some real documentation, they would have supported him in digging to the bottom of such an outrageous practice, as deliberately shooting unarmed civilians clearly goes against the entire code of the marines, as well as being an obscene and un-American practice. Mainstream media pundits, by and large, launched ad hominem attacks against the bloggers, instead. In the end, CNN’s Eason Jordan was obliged to resign.

Twice in three months, the rest of the news media seemed content to bury the news of political misdeeds by members of their own corps -- members of the media elite who seemed eager to present false statements to the public in order to further their own political agendas. Twice, bloggers have brought to these lies to light.

Very soon, bloggers may be the real and only source for news you trust. This may put lots of us paper people out of a job, but, the world changes. Blog is no longer the name of a comic book caveman. Blog may very well be my --our -- future.