After reading the much-discussed Daniel Lyons attack on blogs in Forbes and Dan Gillmor's (much more civil) response, my decidedly-liberal old friend Lein Shory emailed:
The article's really quite astonishing.
You know, after reading [Gillmor's post] and the accompanying comments, it occurred to me that one reason blogs are viewed as dangerous is that they serve as means to the (at least ostensible) ends of both liberals and conservatives. Those ends are definitely not always the same, and they come from different motivations, but if liberals want "freedom of information" and conservatives want the "marketplace of ideas," those are both at least neighboring territories, and blogs go a little ways toward making them more of a reality. Corporations, big media, the government--any entrenched power--can't help but be nervous, and will eventually seek ways to fight them.
Lacking a more eloquent response, I'm reduced to saying, "Yep."
I would read the Forbes article, but it's behind a free subscription firewall and I don't want to bother. Blogs don't force me to pay a price (money or convenience) to access their opinions. Isn't that the real objection from mainstream media?
Ever see a cop movie where someone from Internal Affairs shows up? The cops get all hostile, sullen and paranoid. That's the way journalists seem to react to bloggers.
I happen to like and trust cops a lot more than I do journalists but I absolutely believe in the need for Internal Affairs. So you can imagine where I stand on bloggers.
Keep up the good work
If you really want to, you can get through the Forbes registration block with the login/password "forbesdontbug".
If you really want to.
thanks Will Collier. Do you have the password to bigwidebeaver.com ?
Blogs serve to break down the walls behind which the real facts are hidden.
I’m surprised Lyons didn’t get around to attacking those slanderous product reviewers at Amazon.com and other sites with “customer review” sections. Because, you know, every time some anonymous punk leaves a bad one-star review for a product, it could end up costing a fine upstanding corporation thousands of dollars in sales. Companies pay good money to promote and cultivate the image of their products, why should Amazon be allowed to trash their reputations and their bottom lines by harboring these online lynch mobs? This seems to be Lyons main theme, so I’m sure it’s just an oversight that he didn’t address the problem in the article. Perhaps he will address the issue in a future installment.
p.s. – for free subscription firewalls, use to bugmenot.com, preferably from the firefox extension!
