Another day glued to CNN, with a pinch of Fox TV and Al jazeera. Furloughs in the blogosphere have been most disappointing, however; and this at the supposed hour of glory for blogsPerhaps the title The demise of the blog is a bit strong but I liked it too much not to use it. Also, this post is positioning itself so that when the inevitable backlash against blogs occurs, I can say I was ahead of the curve..
I opined a few weeks ago how blogs would add a unique new perspective to our understanding of war. But I was wrong. Embedded journalists who feed us victory and defeat live via videophone provide the unique new perspective in this war.
Some reasons why blogs have failed to live up to the challenge:
How does CNN make money? The first few days of the war saw no ads at all on CNN. Then, a few days ago, a brave South African Airways offered up idyllic landscapes for escapist fantasies. The Croatians have now followed suit with an ad that intones, “The Mediterranean as it used to be,” but unfortunately the cynic in me keeps on answering “When, during the Balkan war?” but his last post, on Mar 21, says “I’ve been asked to suspend my war blogging for awhile,” because CNN feels his current job as correspondent is a full time commitment. Another tactic is to “embrace and extend”—several media outlets pay their reporters to write “behind the scenes” pieces that are meant to show color. But these have been raided for truly newsworthy content, and we get the feeling we’re reading the cutting room floor.
Perhaps blogs have been promoted above their station. They are not proving to be the optimal tool for distilling the fog of war war into clear conclusions (though there are exceptionsBlatant plug for MemeFirst, I know.). The best blogs know their place—say, as a pointer to original commentary, or as a place for discussion among self-selecting groups; or act as a clearing house for local information, such as gossip.
On the following counts I plead guilty as charged, Your Honor. 🙂
ECHO CHAMBER: I have very limited time to blog, I am pro war, and objectivist – so therefore I mainly visit blogs that are pro war, or objectivist (or libertarian). I spend time on these blogs (instead of trying to find new, fresh and original sources to quote and comment on), not because I’m uninterest in new views and information, but because I know they are good at filtering content that I think is important (and I will only write in my own blog on that kind of material). It simply has to do with the time I can afford to spend on this.
PREACHERS TO THE CHOIR: Maybe I’m closed minded, but as any philosophically aware person – I reason, debate and argue from certain foundations. It’s not that I don’t want to affect the people with whom I disagree with – the truth is that I _can’t_, there is nothing to bridge an understanding when both parties are so far apart from eachother as I am to philosophically unaware socialists for example (my most common kind of visitor, it seems).
Instead I write for myself and for my ‘peers’ – and I truly believe that people who have an understanding close to mine (libertarians, for instance) might be affected by what I write.
But to affect a socialist (in any other way than a negative one) I’d have to betray my beliefs in writing that. I’m “extreme” because I think it serves my philosophical ideals best. To be untruthful just to catch the attention of someone who, in the end, still won’t have a snowballs chance in hell to agree with your foundations, is a wasted effort.
Or to express the division with a quote:
“I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.”
— E.M. Forster
In closing I agree with you on your premonition though – blogs are private affairs with relatively little time, thought and effort put in to them (all things considered) – and the end result (when the blogosphere is fully matured and ripe) will probably be small “webrings” of smaller bloggers who “Preach to the Choir” – the Choir being the big and popular bloggers in a specific kind of topic/ideology with which the smaller bloggers identify or agree with.
I missed to answer the PREACHERS OF THE CHOIR fully, as you asked why we don’t post unfavorable things.
I saw, for instance, that on Memefirst a story about the “could have been, but wasn’t” chemical factory in Iraq was posted. I didn’t post that for one reason alone – I’m not a news service.
And I don’t think blogs are supposed to. You go to a blog to get opinions – or if previous comments have been fauly; corrections to those opinions – but (political) blogs are about opinions first and foremost – the visitor is supposed to have done at least some homework.
Yes, even if it’s an issue where disagreement, or uncertainty, is the norm – we write about our take on a certain story, and we support it with links that tell the same story. If we linked to disagreeing stories we’d have to argue why they aren’t true (since our mission is to affect), and in walks the problem of finding time to do all this…
Firstster
Taking the cue from Charles below, here’s two recent occasions MemeFirst was first to market with clever prognosticationsn that were later echoed by the big boys. 1. Users of social software should be shot (and I do mean that, figuratively)…