MSM Vs. Blogosphere: A rebuttal

[alevensalor]

I have heard over and over again about how Bloggers are not real journalists, about how the denizens of the blogosphere are uncredentialed, unedited hacks, and I just thought I would take a moment to respond to the MSM’s take on the blogosphere in general.

The MSM derides us as unedited. True enough, most of us are unedited by any hand other than our own. You know what that is, when people’s opinions and the news of the day makes it to the public without editing? That’s called a free press, something that has fallen by the wayside in this country. You spend millions of dollars on your media, MSM, and you reach many more people than I do, but I’m not lying to people, or pushing a state-controlled agenda. Oh, we push many agendas here at WTW, but we do it without the government’s consent or permission, simply because neither is required. People don’t censor us. You say we’re unedited, I say amen.

more

~A!

[rox63]

1. Bloggers are filling a void

They are taking on a role that the MSM has abandoned, that of a free and unfettered press.

[regnaD kciN]

2. It's not 'MSM', it's 'CMC'!!!

That's "Corporate Media Cartel."

Never, ever, frame an issue by describing your opponents as "mainstream" -- when you do that, you've already lost 90% of your audience.

:bounce:

[tuvor]

5. How many people know what a 'cartel' is, though?

I'll bet 90% can't define it.

[aneerkoinos]

6. Very Important

I've opposed all the time the MSM meme. But drop the 'Cartel', just call them what they are, the Corporate Media. And the most accurate term for those serving the Corporate Media is not journalist (which is a vocation, not an occupation), but whore.

[alevensalor]

12. It's a good point

But that's how they're referred to, and hence it is how people know them.

~A!

[applegrove]

3. Whatever blogs are ... they make propaganda harder & easier

Does this 'specialization' in how people get their news make for a less pluralistic society in the end? Does that mean the neocon/rovbots/gop win? Or doesn it mean people's alligiances will go across oceans (you know if they cannot get what they need at home).

ie: The boars could join the freeper site, etc.

[tuvor]

4. Well if the "real" reporters aren't reporting, I'm happy to listen to

legitimate bloggers.

The MSM can bite me until I see them properly represented on my Google news searches for "Guckert".

[aneerkoinos]

7. Terminology

Let's keep our terminology truthfull, please. It's not "MSM reporters", it's Corporate Media whores.

[tuvor]

8. I'll use MSM, thanks.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that the term "mainstream" is universally perceived to be a good thing. After all, it's a good bet YOU don't think it's a good thing. Maybe educating people is the key.

And besides, who's going to listen to someone who labels good ol' Tom Brokaw or Diane Sawyer (or whomever) a "whore"?

My two cents.

[aneerkoinos]

10. Educating the people

'Mainstream' equals 'normal' and people tend to identify with normal. Corporations are not normal, they are not mainstream, they are sociopaths.

There is nothing as important as educating the people. It is the very purpose of the corporate media to keep people uneducated and stupid, the pacified sheeple they are. The only weapon against stupidity enforced by lies and half lies of the corporate media is truth, the radical, liberating truth. And the truth is that people who sell their talent and conscience to corporations are whores.

The truth is that the whores are scared shitless that they are being exposed for what they are, whores.

The truth is that in they their hearts people hate media middlemen and know that even "good ol' Tom Brokaw or Diane Sawyer" are whores, and even more true is that they will definitely listen when authentic journalists get personal with the corporate whores and call them what they are, a good brawl is the best attention grabber.

[peacetalksforall]

9. Call the bloggers...GAP FILLERS and DIGGERS then no one has

criticize the bloggers for not being credentialed journalists.

Bloggers and their support teams of contributors FIND what has been HIDDEN by MSMs (on orders from their other half - the government and banking).

Bloggers and their teams are a parallel to journalists and their editiors who sit down and try to figure out who, what, when, and where (like in the old days). Bloggers and their teams don't wait for editors to OK an investigation or handout investigations. BESIDES, THERE ARE FEW SERIOUS INVESTIGATORS in the MSMs anymore. There are only PROPAGANDA CREATORS - words that give the illusion of news.

There would be no need for bloggers and their teams if we had real news instead of propagandists!!!!!

Would communism have ruled in the USSR as long as it did if the citizens had had real access to the outside world?

Has anyone calculated the ratio of total time spent on scandals, endless-useless repetition of unimportant stories, health and money advice, and stupid cracks VS hard-core news with details and second opinions from authentic sources, not ditto-heads (to use the Franken expression).

At least bloggers don't submit their contributions in the style of the pretty people who speak about massacres or crashed with a smile on their face.

Big thanks and handshakes to the serious journalists, some of whom are still around and whose works make it through.

[alevensalor]

11. I second that

There would be no need for a "fifth estate" if the fourth was doing the job it is supposed to do. The checks and balances are supposed to be checked and balanced by a media presence owned and operated by independent interests, not the mega-corps who own our media.

~A!

[Athame]

13. Who edited Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin?

The bloggers are the pamphleteers of the new revolution. If the internet shuts down (I know, I know) the serious bloggers will continue the old fashioned way, on paper and posters and even on text messages. The ideas themselves take hold. And that, is what the corporate media are afraid of.