A depressing alternative
We have heard much about the great potential for blogs to challenge and usurp the MSM, in part because of their ability to bring together experts from their fields to continually review and advise on the issues being discussed.
Well, reading Daily Kos's attack on Carol Darr, the director of the Institute I work at, the future appears to be a rather more depressing one. Carol Darr submitted a detailed set of comments to the FEC regarding their plans to amend campaign finance regulations to include public communications via the Internet, including blogging. If I was looking for a serious analysis of the relative merits of Carol's submission, I would have been sadly disappointed.
For what I read on Daily Kos last night was all too often little more than a collection of rants, mean-spirited personal attacks and claims that were often contradictory or simply incorrect. There seemed to be little evidence that many of the people commenting had even read all of Carol's submission.
If this is the best the blogging community can offer as a critique to a serious written submission, the future does not bode well for serious debate. Do bloggers such as Kos really expect to be taken seriously when they resort to comments such as these: "As for scatological references, here's another one: Darr is full of shit." When you have to resort to that level of debate, well, that is embarrassing.
There is much talk about how the MSM ignores facts, yet one comment happily claims that IPDI's funding by PEW shows that it is a front for politically conservative and evangelistic projects. One conversation with Carol would quickly dispel that notion, but that would require the person to act..well, like a journalist and check her facts.
I encourage everyone to read Carol's submission in its entirety and then seek out a rather more informed discussion of the potential impact these proposals mean for the blogging community.
Well, reading Daily Kos's attack on Carol Darr, the director of the Institute I work at, the future appears to be a rather more depressing one. Carol Darr submitted a detailed set of comments to the FEC regarding their plans to amend campaign finance regulations to include public communications via the Internet, including blogging. If I was looking for a serious analysis of the relative merits of Carol's submission, I would have been sadly disappointed.
For what I read on Daily Kos last night was all too often little more than a collection of rants, mean-spirited personal attacks and claims that were often contradictory or simply incorrect. There seemed to be little evidence that many of the people commenting had even read all of Carol's submission.
If this is the best the blogging community can offer as a critique to a serious written submission, the future does not bode well for serious debate. Do bloggers such as Kos really expect to be taken seriously when they resort to comments such as these: "As for scatological references, here's another one: Darr is full of shit." When you have to resort to that level of debate, well, that is embarrassing.
There is much talk about how the MSM ignores facts, yet one comment happily claims that IPDI's funding by PEW shows that it is a front for politically conservative and evangelistic projects. One conversation with Carol would quickly dispel that notion, but that would require the person to act..well, like a journalist and check her facts.
I encourage everyone to read Carol's submission in its entirety and then seek out a rather more informed discussion of the potential impact these proposals mean for the blogging community.
