Blurring the Lines? More Like Disturbing the Peace.

This is not me working on Curly R

There was a piece in the Washington Post last Thursday about how blogging is taking one step closer to legitimacy because there are bloggers in the courtroom covering the Irving Lewis 'Scooter' Libby trial. Forget power suits and lunch at The Palm, it's pajamas and pop-tarts, the bloggers are here! And they're taking your seat in the press pool!

It is an empty, backhanded piece, still more evidence that the traditional media (tradmed) doesn't understand blogging and what the tradmed does not understand it fears and what it fears it seeks to delegitimize. Don't believe it? Check out media reaction to Stephen Colbert's White House Correspondents Dinner performance back in May 2006. Here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

After pretending to laud the progress bloggers' presence at the Libby trial signifies, the piece reverts to tradmed form, reminding the reader that the difference between bloggers and tradmed journalists is that the tradmedia follows a "checks and balances process" that includes "verifying facts, seeking both sides of the story and subjecting an article to editing." And in case you missed this little rhetorical device, that comment about basic journalistic practices being "honored mostly in the breach" by blogs is not complimentary.

Bouncing innuendo, defamatory voices, "experiment of free expression," it's all there in the Post's take on blogs. The best is yet to come though: a veiled threat to anyone that would put their words in public without the veneer of an "approved" media outlet.

Several media experts have been predicting a greater presence of bloggers in court -- as defendants. For instance, [Thomas] Kunkel, [Dean of UMD journalism school] who is also president of the American Journalism Review, said courts might soon draw the limits of what is acceptable by imposing hefty libel and defamation judgments on bloggers, many of whom do not realize their writings can have expensive legal consequences.

Blogging liability insurance? I'm all for expanding the alternative media, but give me a fucking break. Here is the message: careful what you write amateur because someone might decide to get litigious. The problem with that blockquote above? It's bullshit. And the first precedent came down for us just four days ago: Apple vs. the John Does that run AppleInsider and PowerPage.

For those that don't know, in December 2004, Apple filed a lawsuit against these two (gossip? rumor? technology? blog? news?) sites for reporting confidential and presumably leaked information about future products. Apple alleged that these sites were not covered by California journalism shield laws and should be forced to reveal their sources because they are not 'legitimate' news sites. The court disagreed, saying

We can think of no workable test or principle that would distinguish 'legitimate' from 'illegitimate' news," and that the the rumor sites appear "conceptually indistinguishable from publishing a newspaper, and we see no theoretical basis for treating it differently. (Links: the case, the verdict, the aftermath in which Apple pays the defendants' legal fees.)

That's really good news for people that discuss facts, issue opinion, use the First Amendment and stay away from making shit up and defaming other people.

What is my point? Here is my point. First, 'blogging' doesn't mean anything by itself, and neither does 'bloggers.' Blogging refers to an action and a medium, not an end, an intent or a product. Bloggers are writers. When you meet someone in a bar and ask them what they do and they say I'm a writer, you need at least some other piece of information to know what that means. A technical writer, a novelist and a medical transcriptionist are all writers.

Second, the end product may be contained within a web log, but only the editor knows the real message, and only the editor chooses how to reveal that message. That the writer and editor are the same person makes no difference. The Curly R and The Curly W happen to have a full paid staff including reporters, researchers, columnists, editors and publishers. That they are all me and Brandon and what we get paid for is not blogging is beside the point.

Why would you believe that not submitting my work to someone for review somehow invalidates it? Because some old dude in the biz didn't bless it? Have you ever read a small town newspaper? Talk about the WaPo and NYT needing some perspective.

Blogs self-select into categories or types, and subject matter is coincidental. Two blogs may share the same subject matter, and yet have nothing in common beyond that subject matter. Surprise, like newspapers. Ever read the New York Post? Since Rupert Murdoch reacquired it in 1993, it has little resembled anything approaching an objective news source, and yet is the 5th largest newspaper in the country.

So something the world of blogs is just coming to terms with is to what degree should blogs of different character but similar subject matter be lumped together? As the recent dustup in the Washington Nationals blogworld indicates to me, blog authors themselves have not yet figured out how to define the fault lines which tells me that the tradmed is still years away from understanding that a poorly written and unsourced journal, or the front-brain personal musings on some subject matter should not even appear in a serious discussion with a well-written, researched and sourced journal on the same subject matter. The terms we will use to define serious internet writing will be things like alternative media, niche media, affinity media, but note that they all include the term 'media.'

Which brings me back to the top of this piece. Bloggers are in the courthouse in the trial of the year, if not the decade. They are there, hearing the arguments, observing the jury's reaction and giving you the story. If you want to see what bloggers are writing about this trial, have a look here, and here. But do not be impressed that the tradmed is taking note of all this. They are afraid and they will attempt to enforce a nonexistent pecking order among blogs in an effort to dilute the impact of the most influential ones, until that time when they realize that serious blogs are part of the traditional media, and reach out to bring them into the conversation. It's called siege mentality.

This piece was cross-posted on The Curly W.



Peter Tork in bunny pajamas from here.