The MSM lashes out at CFB blogs
Thursday, August 4, 2005 at 11:54PM In a first for college football bloggers, an MSM (if you can call a Des Moines Register writer MSM) writer lashes out at them.
In the words of Instapundit, "read the whole thing".
The entire thing strikes me as juvenile.
MGoBlog and Boi From Troy and FanBlogs are already on it.
Don't Tread On Us
Actually, just don't be an idiot.
Taking the attack on not having interviewed others is a weak
point. HeismanPundit and FanBlogs have done interviews.
I'll try and get some going at some point this season. They're
easy, except for the access (see skeptical SIDs) part. We the
bloggers are beginning to have that access, which is maybe what worries
Ms. Clark. I smell a turf battle here.
Having spent time covering a major college football team, talking to
players, coaches, SIDs, other writers and TV reporters, trainers,
administrators and everyone in-between, I can tell you I've personally
done that dance and don't see why Ms. Clark holds that up as some kind
of mark of distinction. Its simply one avenue of reporting.
Bloggers have another, one where they also happen to be more free to
express opinions.
This is extrapolating a bit, but one of the major flaws of American
media is the attempt at hiding bias. We all have them, and we
should be more at ease to express our opinions, striving more for
fairness than being unbiased (an impossible act). I think many
frustrated media members may take aim at bloggers because they are able
to report to significant audiences while having the liberty of opinion.
That is simply not a liberty permitted in newsrooms, unless its a more
subtle opinion process (see the distinction between the Los Angeles
Times and New York Times on one end and the Orange County Register on
another). This inability to come clean on one's views hinders
many a opinionated and passionate journalist. Perhaps this
industry-wide effort at stifling points of view leaves many an unhappy
reporter, creating conditions perfect for pieces like today's wild one
from Ms. Clark.
CFR
More---
I find it interesting Ms. Clark brings up Swift Veterans for Truth, but
neglects to mention the MSM's horrible failure in the Dan Rather/CBS
MemoGate scandal. Funny omission there, methinks. Plays
right into my issue with "unbiased" journalists trying to find other
ways to sneak in opinion and bias without really treating it as such.
CFR
Update #2---
HeismanPundit weighs in.
BoiFromTroy also discusses CFR's reaction, and says "pompous mainstream media sucks".
EDSBS.com also wants answers.
Or at least, some kind of contact. They're playing the role of
Jodie Foster here, since the Des Moines Register website comment APP
isn't working for them.
Real good, Ms. Clark, when you have even the persistent jokers at EDSBS.com wanting a piece of you.
I highly doubt she was targeting any of the bloggers in the CFB blog
community linked to often on here, but we have a right to feel
attacked. It was a broad attack. The article mentions Steve
Alford and message boards, so we suspect her motivations were local,
smaller in scope than the broad CFB blog community. But she
needed to be more explicit in narrowing her targets.
In the meantime we're taking apart other sections of the shoddily argued story.
And she's paying a price, as HeismanPundit vows that she won't be talking to 2004 Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart anytime soon. Ouch.
CFR
And even more reaction---
This time from non-CFB blogger Captain's Quarters.
Here's a lengthy reaction from thoughts from an empty head.
Oh and more,
Instead of following certain blogs for fan reaction, picking up stories from other news outlets, or gathering early information about future big stories, she chooses to diss the whole lot because some bonehead on a message board posted a rumor once that turned out to be false. Whatever!
and more.
Again, making a broad target with ones rantings makes one a broad target for return fire from a similarly broad audience.
Here's proof we aren't so bad, the self-correction phenomena.
My point? That the web has fakes and can offer either wrong or late information but that it also has powerful self correcting processes that are as good or maybe better than the traditional editing process of the traditional media
CFR
Update #4---
Blogger RothCPA links to this great website, regrettheerror.
You mean, the media makes mistakes?
Their vital fact-checking isn't fool-proof? Nahhhh. I just don't believe it.
Several bloggers also tagged her "voracity" comment, later corrected---
In the new "journalism of assertion," as the report calls it, information is offered with little time and little attempt to independently verify its voracity.
See here
here
Voracity. Yes, the Exempt Media gets voracious in its attempts to aggrandize themselves at the expense of their readers, especially those who deign to criticize their work. Unfortunately, I believe Clark meant "veracity", which means "truth" and "accuracy". Great work so far on the part of the layers of fact-checkers and editors. It gets even better from here.
and here
PS! If you're going to throw down the gauntlet, try not to do this:The conclusion of the 600-page report was that the traditional "journalism of verification," in which reporters check facts, is being infringed upon by a new model of journalism that is "faster, looser and cheaper."
In the new "journalism of assertion," as the report calls it, information is offered with little time and little attempt to independently verify its voracity. [sic]
mgoblog: Where The Voracity Is Unverified Daily!
Of course, the error got past Des Moines Register fact-checking types until well after the bloggers caught it and the correction was made---
Editor's note: A column by Nancy Clark published in Thursday's newspaper included the incorrect use of the word "voracity", instead of the word "veracity". Clark submitted the column without the error. The mistake was generated by an editor after she filed the column.
—Bryce Miller, executive sports editor
CFR
Of course, I've now opened myself up for some criticism from fellow CFB bloggers. They don't like me anyway, hehe.
I don't profess any kind of supremacy here (unless we're talking about the Big Six),
as my readers have caught all kinds of typos, errors in argument logic,
and otherwise work hard to keep me on my toes. I appreciate that.
Its a level of interaction that is probably lacking for traditional
journalists. They get angry letters and emails, but there's not
this capacity for instant reaction and correction if you're working at
a newspaper, for example. And a journalist, having worked hard to
reach their position, may not have the most patience and trust for a
sometimes hostile and skeptical audience. But that causes
disconnect and friction on all sides, weakening the capacity for truth
at the end of the day.
The blogs at least appear to plug some of those holes. Can't hurt, right?
Mind you we don't need to be running around testing out how far NYTimes
V. Sullivan and all those other landmark media rights cases reach and
libeling everything in sight, but the open forum is giving new life to
news and public discussion.
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Reader Comments (8)
Most bloggers (at least the ones that I find interesting) do not choose to report "hard news" or ink game reaction from players. Bloggers provide analysis and perspective that print journalists are unable to provide both because of space restrictions and the narrow interest inherent in some of this content.
For example, would any mainstream newspaper even think about printing some of the stuff found on footballoutsiders.com, kenpom.typepad.com (basketball reference, I know), or the fine fellas over at professional football research? I highly doubt it. But this is information that is both fascinating and applicable to the universe of avid sports fans.
As for the little rant on confusing rumor with truth, the problem is rampant on general internet message boards but I personally have not seen this problem on reputable blogs. Any blog that rests its laurels on rumor will ultimately collapse upon itself because insight and perspective is only possible through hard factual evidence.
For example, if I post on a blog that Damien Rhodes is now white, has 6 toes on his right foot, and is taking over the placekicking duties for Syracuse this season, my blog will lose what little readers it now has. There is an immediate consequence to reporting rumor as fact and not making that fact plainly obvious to a reader.
On the flip side, if I make the same point on a message board, what is the consequence? Ms. Clark has made an improper juxtaposition here and it really shows her lack of knowledge of the blog community.
I really feel sorry for Ms. Clark because I think she is going to hate her job (and perform it poorly as well). If you spend your whole life reporting "X said Y," what contribution have you made? Sure, the fact that "X said Y" is news, but what about context? Where does the statement fit in the grand scheme? Ms. Clark is devoid of big picture journalism and she is doomed to be a staff writer for the better part of her life.
The Dan Rather "scandal," if you call it that, involved some unsourced documents, the content of which no one called into question. In fact, one of the amazing things about the story was that no one really disputed the contents of the memos, just the authenticity of the memos. Certainly it was sloppy, but it wasn't much more than that.
On the other hand, the so-called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" ran a few TV ads in West Virginia and Ohio, if I am not mistaken, but achieved nearly round-the-clock coverage in the "liberal" MSM for close to a month in the middle of the campaign, even though the claims were easily shown to be bogus once someone engaged in even a rudimentary bit of analysis.
And, surely you recall that when Kerry finally released his military records, further proving the claims of the SBVFT to be rubbish, the "liberal" MSM focused on Kerry's college grades rather than on the thorough debunking of the SBVFT claims.
In terms of a failure on the part of a supposedly unbiased press, there's no question which of these was a bigger "scandal."
Regardless of the rest of the content in this writer's column, the fact that this writer uses the SBVFT and not the Rather scandal to illustrate her point is no example of bias on her part.
The Rather case was an example of Journalism's supposed vetting process on stories collapsing. The documents were forgeries, period. Without credible documents, there is no story. But CBS ran the story anyway, during the middle of an election, no less.
It was a journalism slip-up of epic proportions. What good did vetting and a world of highly paid editors accomplish there?
My point was that she brought up an issue like the Swift Vets, which had nothing to do with internal fact checking (the vets presented the ads and the story, journalists did not create the story, only reported on what was before them), irrelevant to her editorial argument. Basically it was just a political jab that didn't relate to her central argument.
And then she glaringly omits the REAL story that related to her whole issue on editors and checking facts, in terms of last year's election, RatherGate.
One was a journalism generated story, an investigation from within the jornalism ranks, the other was presented to them, like 9-11 or a shuttle exploding. Get it? Fact checking on swift vets later occurred as the story progressed, fact checking was ESSENTIAL from the word go on the Bush thing, one that could have been run or not run, lacking real immediacy, and something that had been an ongoing story.
My points is that the author's assertion was 1)weak and 2)omitted a more relevant example, but also an example that would have crushed the point she was trying to make. In other words she's full of ****, and snuck in a political point just for the hell of it.
Kind of like what I was talking about, frustrated journalists who are not allowed to express opinion in the open, and thus get mad at the bloggers who can report, express opinion, and don't have to stealthily sneak in their points of view like the author did.
The SBVFT story was not, by any means, a story that was presented to the media on the order of 9-11. It was a bunch of people, later shown to be motivated by personal dislike of JFK because of his later testimony in front of Congress against the war in Vietnam, who pushed an agenda attacking his war record without factual basis. The SBVFT story was a failure on the part of the media because it was balance run amok--the idea being that the media needs to present both sides of an issue regardless of the legitimacy of the claims of each of the sides. By the same token, we should never talk about the holocaust without consulting a holocaust-denier on the subject, for balance's sake. If, for example, I were to have gone to the cable networks in the middle of the campaign, and allege that GWB or JFK had sodomized my dog the week before, you'd never expect them to give credence to my claims. But the SBVFT claims were no more true than the dog-sodomizing claim would have been, and the networks pushed them around-the-clock.
This seems to be more what the author is arguing against, instead of some sort of commentary on the traditional editing process.
In any event, I fail to see how pointing out an unchallenged fact--which is that the SBVFT claims were indeed later proven to have been unsubstantiated--is proof of bias or the promotion of some agenda on the part of the author. It's certainly not a "political jab"--that is, unless you still actually think that there was some truth to what they were saying--in which case I suggest you study the situation a little more.
If she had indeed used the "Rathergate" example, would she have also been trying to score a cheap political point, or promoting some subversive agenda? And, if so, would you be calling her out for it?
More to the point, when you bring up "Rathergate," are you trying to push some agenda? For the record, I don't think so--the fact is, "Rathergate" was a journalistic failure, and it's not proof of bias when one points that out.
(Also, as a tertiary point, if I am not mistaken, there was more to the CBS story than the memos--I think there was also some interview with one of the principals, who confirmed the contents of the memos. This is not to say there wouldn't have been a story without the memos, but to say that the memos weren't the entire story, as you assert.)
Something that makes a lot of bloggers laugh after witnessing the whole Rather situation.
Further enhanced when her paper had to issue a fairly belated correction (to an error that might not have been hers, to be fair, if we are to trust the editor's word) on a typo.
And what examples of "journalism of assertion" did she bring up in terms of CFB? None.
So she hinted at some message boards, read us a Columbia University of New York Graduate School of Journalism criticism of blogs, slammed the Swift Vets as proof assertion then defended her industry because it checks facts but that flies in the face of the Rather piece that was torn to shreds in about half a day's work by real people not paid to do the work CBS' fact checks get paid to do.
It was just half-cocked all around. She asserted without giving us specific evidence of what she was herself asserting against.
It's like me coming on here and saying "the SEC is bad, bad I tell ya" without really narrowing in scope the proof of why they're bad. If I had said they schedule funny, that's assertion, but I bring up proof, narrow the scope, and get to work.
She really didn't do that here.
I understand where you're coming from but I think we're both going in different directions on this one, kind of arguing at tangents instead of a larger point of intersection.
At least some appear to really make John Kerry look like a liar, and not the vets.
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/002203.php
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/002255.php
Regarding your links, I don't think of "Christmas in Cambodia" when I think of the Swifties (O'Neil may have talked about this later, but I don't think it was in the ads)--I think of the contentions that the Purple Hearts JFK received were not legitimate, which culminated in the rather ridiculous and shameful spectacle of delegates at the RNC wearing band-aids minimizing their importance.
As far as Captain's Quarters, they lost some cred with me when they suggested the Downing Street Memo was a forgery. Talk about ridiculous assertions! Now there was a black eye for blogs; if Ms. Clark had mentioned that she might have had a point.
In any event, here is a site so non-partisan it was mentioned by VP Cheney in one of the debates, with their take on the SBVFT:
http://www.factcheck.org/article231.html