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maradyddI generally prefer to absent myself from the morass of meta-journalism that is discussion about the blogosphere itself, but that said, if you want to read an incredibly patronising article, you don't have to look a lot farther than this Eric Engberg op-ed.
The editorial focuses on the shitstorm of commentary that swept the web on 2 November, natch. Certainly, a lot of that was wishful thinking, a lot of it was misinformation, and a lot of it was just flat-out wrong. That's fine, because it's all true. What gets under my skin, though, is stuff like the following:
Well, you know, the vast majority of We the People aren't going to grok most of what goes into the EnsEMBL genomics database, or the reports and data on the Center for Army Lessons Learned, but it's all up there for anyone to take a look at. You want to see some data that could be outright dangerous if used irresponsibly, paw through some of the stuff on CALL; there are POIs in there that can get you killed if you're not observing proper safety precautions. Them's the breaks; you pick the information you want and how you want to use it.
Engberg continues:
I'll even argue that in blogs, particularly in political blogs talking about transitional situations like elections, the truth will out not only because people call each other out (as was the topic of much discussion after Rathergate), but because transitional situations come to an end and everyone finds out What Really Happened all at once. This leads directly into a facet of the blogosphere that Engberg is utterly glossing over: its time scale is radically compressed from that of print or even TV journalism.
With one exception: sports.
The blogosphere allows for a play-by-play of what's going on from moment to moment, just like the commentators in a football game describing every action on the field for the loyal listeners back home. So what if the commentators point out that the Cowboys are up by a field goal at one point in the first half, but they end up losing the game anyway? That doesn't change the fact that, say, from the field goal at 7:34 pm until the Texans scored a touchdown at 7:52, the Cowboys were ahead. Likewise, if Wonkette points out at one point that Kerry is up 52-47 in Ohio -- which he was at one point, because I was one of those no-life dorks hitting Reload on cnn.com all fucking night of the election, until I got sick of it and went off to grade papers -- that isn't changed by his ultimately losing the election. Engberg seems to be of the opinion that blog readers are looking for Gospel Truth and receiving at best, half-truth, at worst, lies, damned lies and statistics. I submit that Engberg misunderstands what we're interested in. Journalism, of the type he describes, can indeed provide a slice of what's going on all over the country, but it must wait until long after the fact to do so. Those of us who are interested in a truly up-to-the-minute assault of information understand that we're going to have to take it with a shakerful of salt; that seasoning is the price we pay for a slice of life that we can get from blogs.
The editorial focuses on the shitstorm of commentary that swept the web on 2 November, natch. Certainly, a lot of that was wishful thinking, a lot of it was misinformation, and a lot of it was just flat-out wrong. That's fine, because it's all true. What gets under my skin, though, is stuff like the following:
While out on the campaign trail covering candidates, my own network’s political unit would not even give me exit poll information on election days because it was thought to be too tricky for a common reporter to comprehend. If you are standing in the main election night studio when your network’s polling experts start discussing the significance of a particular state poll, you the reporter will hear about three words out of one hundred that you will understand. These polls occur in the realm of statistics and probability. They require PhD-style expertise to understand. The people who analyze them for news organizations, like the legendary Warren Mitofsky and Martin Plissner at CBS News -- have trade associations like doctors do to certify their work.First of all, never you mind that a binomial distribution absolutely does not take a PhD to understand; it's standard fare for the latter half of your average undergrad Stats 101, and I can explain it to a high school student of above-average intelligence such that he'll remember it when he gets into Stats 101. That isn't the point at all. The point to which I object is Engberg's attitude that because We the People aren't certified to deal with these Scary Data, we shouldn't be allowed to put our grubby little hands on them at all.
Well, you know, the vast majority of We the People aren't going to grok most of what goes into the EnsEMBL genomics database, or the reports and data on the Center for Army Lessons Learned, but it's all up there for anyone to take a look at. You want to see some data that could be outright dangerous if used irresponsibly, paw through some of the stuff on CALL; there are POIs in there that can get you killed if you're not observing proper safety precautions. Them's the breaks; you pick the information you want and how you want to use it.
Engberg continues:
When you the humble reporter are writing a story based on the polls you need one of these gurus standing over your shoulder interpreting what they mean or you almost certainly will screw it up. There is a word for this kind of teamwork and expertise. It’s called "journalism."Now, I'll absolutely concede that it is the responsibility of people who provide information to others to double-check that what they're putting out is correct, and part of that responsibility includes consulting expert resources before running one's mouth. (It's also especially amusing that this sort of high-horsery is coming from CBS, given the colossal fuckup that was the Bush National Guard Documents scandal.) But there's also a flip side of the coin: when people screw things up, they are expected to print retractions. This happens in blogs all the time; this happens in print media as well, but I don't even have to invoke my expertise as someone whose job it was for several years to proofread the laid-out pages of a major metropolitan newspaper to remind you that the print media usually do their damnedest to bury retractions in the tiniest print they can get away with.
I'll even argue that in blogs, particularly in political blogs talking about transitional situations like elections, the truth will out not only because people call each other out (as was the topic of much discussion after Rathergate), but because transitional situations come to an end and everyone finds out What Really Happened all at once. This leads directly into a facet of the blogosphere that Engberg is utterly glossing over: its time scale is radically compressed from that of print or even TV journalism.
With one exception: sports.
The blogosphere allows for a play-by-play of what's going on from moment to moment, just like the commentators in a football game describing every action on the field for the loyal listeners back home. So what if the commentators point out that the Cowboys are up by a field goal at one point in the first half, but they end up losing the game anyway? That doesn't change the fact that, say, from the field goal at 7:34 pm until the Texans scored a touchdown at 7:52, the Cowboys were ahead. Likewise, if Wonkette points out at one point that Kerry is up 52-47 in Ohio -- which he was at one point, because I was one of those no-life dorks hitting Reload on cnn.com all fucking night of the election, until I got sick of it and went off to grade papers -- that isn't changed by his ultimately losing the election. Engberg seems to be of the opinion that blog readers are looking for Gospel Truth and receiving at best, half-truth, at worst, lies, damned lies and statistics. I submit that Engberg misunderstands what we're interested in. Journalism, of the type he describes, can indeed provide a slice of what's going on all over the country, but it must wait until long after the fact to do so. Those of us who are interested in a truly up-to-the-minute assault of information understand that we're going to have to take it with a shakerful of salt; that seasoning is the price we pay for a slice of life that we can get from blogs.
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Date: 2004-11-09 03:32 pm (UTC)Personally, I think play-by-play news, with the exception of emergency broadcasts, is largely pointless, and more often harmful than not. Things need to be broken down so that the average person can understand them... which, incidentally, is why 24-hour news stations are one of the worst things to come along in American media.
The average blogger may be a cut above the average American in education (maybe, I don't know), but that still doesn't mean they will understand the numbers. Hell, I have an above average intelligence, but when I took pre-calc in college at 27 after not having any math since high school (even though I had a BA), I needed to ask the grad students in the math lab what factoring was and why you couldn't divide a number by zero. Of course I usually got incredulous looks and frustration for my efforts. But to these people math is their bread-and-butter -- they are around it every day. As are you.