As more established media voices add to the criticism of CBS, some are also acknowledging that the world of big journalism has been forever changed – by the blogosphere.
Some of those voices this morning – Peter Worthington at the Toronto Sun is expecting a rather rapid retirement, and has the following observation about the twisted political logic.
The Democrats accuse the Republicans of sponsoring the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (who now say they’ve raised $6.7 million from 53,000 donors) when the Swiftie TV ads make it clear the Republican party and president aren’t involved.
Yet when an anti-Bush forgery boomerangs on Democrats, they blame the Bushies. Kind of convoluted.
The New York Times William Safire:
Alert bloggers who knew the difference between the product of old typewriters and new word processors immediately suspected a hoax: the “documents” presented by CBS News suggesting preferential treatment in Lt. George W. Bush’s National Guard service have all the earmarks of forgeries.
John Fund, Wall Street Journal “gets it”.
If it turns out that the Killian memos are indeed forgeries, the Internet will have played an invaluable role in exposing the fraud much faster than the 18 months Mr. Camacho had to twist in the wind. Free Republic, a Web bulletin board, raised early warning signals about the memos within hours of last Wednesday’s “60 Minutes” broadcast. Powerlineblog.com, a site run by three lawyers, reposted those comments, which were amplified by indcjournal.com. Then design expert Charles Johnson, who blogs at littlegreenfootballs.com, retyped one of the memos using Microsoft Word and showed them to be a perfect typographic match.
A defensive Dan Rather went on the air Friday to complain of what he called a “counterattack” from “partisan political operatives.” In reality, traditional journalism now has a new set of watchdogs in the “blogosphere.” In the words of blogger Mickey Kaus, they can trade information and publicize it “fast enough to have real-world consequences.” Sure, blogs can be transmission belts for errors, vicious gossip and last- minute disinformation efforts. But they can also correct themselves almost instantaneously–in sharp contrast with CBS’s stonewalling.
Of course, there are plenty of the usual suspects who don’t. – the meme of the day from those still wanting to cling desperately to the notion that they “have something” on Bush – “What’s the fuss about the memos, anyway? Even if they are fake, we know they were true.”
update – INDC Journal has a reprint of a well-done NY Sun article by Roderick Boyd. Read the comments – Roddy shows up to expand on the choice of word “non-journalist”, and adds this;
and we are on the cusp of something viz. big change, but what it is, i have no idea.
Sept.13, 2004 – Thus begins the week that the MSM has accepted – some with anger, some with relief – that their all-powerful hold on the “last word” in news and information has officially come to an end.
Welcome to the blogosphere, Roddy.
