Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

Last night I went to a panel discussion hosted by Republican Future, a local group of young Republicans. Jim Lago was one of the panelists. Also included were the editor of the local college newspaper, the host of a local political television program (think “Meet the Press”), a Professor of Communications, a business news publisher, and a liberal/progressive radio host. The topic was Media Bias.

The discussion was pretty good, with panelists responding to questions from the hosts, and a couple from the audience. I must say Jim got the best of them all. Probably the best moment for me was my own simple and unwanted intrusion. The liberal television politico talked about the recent restaurant smoking ban imposed by the city council, and was quite proud of his support. He said his support was because he felt children were at risk in restaurants where smoking was allowed, so he wanted to protect the children. He felt conservatives should support it, too. “If you want to protect children before they are born, you should want to protect them after they are born.” I said, “And vice-versa.” A lot of audience heads nodded. He had no response.

The progressive radio host (sorry, I don’t recall his name), made a comment I really wanted to address, but never got the chance. He concluded that conservatives listen to talk radio because they like simple answers, then quoted Mencken about simple answers almost always being wrong. This must be the nuance John Kerry is so attached to.

Perhaps more to come. The progressive has a new radio show beginning in January, and I would love to do some call-in. He offered to have me on the show as well. But his show is on Saturday mornings–about the time I make the turn and tee off on the back nine. Maybe I’ll carry my cell phone.

Ed Driscoll and Glenn Reynolds have done one of the back-and-forth link routines we often see on the topic of blog readership.

In particular, they are talking about the number of blogs passing a couple of numerical milestones. The comparison of numbers goes on to compare those numbers to the readership of mainstream newspapers, and viewership of the news networks. One comparison caught my eye:

CNN’s typically daily viewership is only about 450,000 viewers. (The Fox News Channel, the cable news ratings leader, gets an average of 799,000 viewers during their broadcasting day.)

Somehow those numbers seem very low, but I’m sure there is some mathematics to back them up somewhere.

My concern is that there are far too many people in the blogosphere patting themselves on the back. The blogosphere is dynamic, and that is what makes it different from those other outlets. Yet it is a short step from that to muddled thought.

What form could the blogosphere eventually take? When you rest on your laurels you end up with what we see in Hollywood and newsrooms. Where are the Jimmy Stewarts and Clark Gables who could get in uniform to support the country? These are the folks who deride Pat Tillman–don’t look for any there. How about Newspapers? Maureen Dowd is still employed at The New York Times, is she not? And television gives us arrogance in the form of Dan Rather and Bill O’Reilly. All are folks who believe they have the truth, and you must agree with them or you are somehow defective in cognitive ability.

That is not something they set out to become. They began by having a vision of providing entertainment, or explaining events with clarity so that their viewers and readers didn’t have to sift through the garbage to draw valid conclusions. But they became the gatekeepers for what was and wasn’t garbage, probably without ever realizing it.

Beware success. It can drive you to believe you alone have all the answers. One of the things I loved about the military was the ethos that didn’t allow this to happen very often. For all the complaints being aired about the National Guard specialist asking Rumsfeld about armor, there is some history that keeps this kind of dialog alive there. Military bosses are not above reproach, and know it. Awards are given, and just as quickly forgotten. Past performance is not the standard of evaluation–potential is. Receive a Navy Cross, and you’re soon just another sailor or Marine. Win an Oscar, and your future is established for a lifetime.

The Weblog Awards, conceived as a way to recognize folks who have provided excellent content and thought while exposing some to blogs they’ve not seen before have potential for becoming Oscaresque if we aren’t careful. Today is the last day of voting, and there will be a huge push from some bloggers for your vote. Remember, we shouldn’t be patting ourselves on the back. We need to follow the path of military professional rather than that of our betters in Hollywood.

I beat up on MSM fairly frequently. Probably because they deserve it. But not all are inept and incompetent, resting on laurels given them by their peers. Some have actually received awards from real people.

Bill Bennett, someone some will immediately pounce on as a right-wing evangelical zealot, has a very good analysis of what is happening right now regarding MSM and the new media of blogging and talk-radio. Don’t let your perception of him one way or the other cloud your mind–go read it:

After the election, many statistics emerged. Perhaps the most interesting do not have to do with the mere shifts in the Catholic, Jewish, Black, or Hispanic votes. But, rather, why those shifts took place.

He talks about the things we in the blogosphere have discussed many times:

Speaking as a host of a three-hour talk show, it is evident that the public, which is checking assertions of fact as they are being made, is not sitting back and merely absorbing pontification.

People who get a portion of their news coverage from the internet certainly have a broad range to choose from. And the linking so prevalent in the blogosphere carries people to many points of view they might never have seen otherwise. This is the strength of the blogosphere, but has its dangers:

…the growth of “unfounded allegations” is at least as much a problem for the mainstream media as it is for the Internet.

Yes, just what I’ve chided Bill O’Reilly about (although he never heard it). And, yes, there is plenty of the same in our realm. But we have better fact-checkers.

The value of the blogosphere, combined with talk-radio, teaches another lesson: the experts can often be wrong-not just about facts but about what people care about, and even who’s in charge.

Here is another strength in the internet. We write about what we feel is important. We may get information from MSM sources, but we decide what is important enough to spend our time on. The focus of the news day is no longer driven by the newsrooms at ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, or FoxNews. We can check them all, along with news agencies and papers around the world, and talk about what we view as the top story. When enough of us share the same topic, MSM eventually must pick it up. When they do, they endure the wrath of the internet denizens if they get it wrong.

And they do get it wrong–intentionally or not. Much of the blame can be laid at the feet of those manning the microphones and word processors in the newsrooms. They just aren’t as intelligent or knowledgeable as this group. They have less real-world experience. Their perspective can be skewed.

What that means to us out here in blogland is that we have to pick up the slack in responsibility and experience. Few reporters know which end of an M16 points downrange. They could probably figure it out. We know. That little bit of difference can be huge in certain situations. We must continue to use our knowledge and experience properly. Add to the conversation, not just scream about something idiotic mouthed by a talking head. Pick up the loose ends. Ground everything to the inspection side.

I can live with inept reportage. What I don’t suffer is inept coverage compounded by arrogance. This is what ruined Dan Rather. Others will follow unless they pay attention and learn to take advantage of the experience and interest out here. For our part, we need to be ready when they finally ask.

More at PowerLine (where else?).

In an article for the San Francisco Chronicle, the reporter claims that Yankees slugger Jason Giambi testified before a federal grand jury that he used steroids and a human growth hormone. Okay, let’s think about this for just a minute.

Grand Jury testimony is secret, and not to be released to the public. The reporter admitted as much when interviewed by NPR this morning. He was asked how he knew this, and he declined to reveal his source, but assured the interviewer that the information was fact.

Now, let’s revisit Bill O’Reilly’s claim the other day. Bill says that MSM is more responsible than the folks out here on the internet, where anyone can throw out some kind or accusation and destroy someone’s life without any proof of the accusation. Bill, Bill, Bill… You defended Dan Rather in this way. What do you have to say about this reporter? Is he telling the truth? How do you know? Or is he simply credible because he works for an Official News Agency™? He made a claim, said he had proof, but won’t show it to us. How do we know he’s telling the truth?

DRUDGE just put up a flash:

FLASH: CBSNEWS HOPES TO MAKE PUBLIC ITS REPORT ON FAKE BUSH DOCS NEXT WEEK, SOURCES TELL DRUDGE. ‘WE HAVE A TENTATIVE RELEASE DATE OF DECEMBER 10,’ TOP SOURCE EXPLAINS…

10 December is a Friday.

Is anyone surprised?

That is Bill O’Reilly’s assessment of Rathergate. O’Reilly just bit the dust. I have little use for his opinion now. He has been on a downhill slide for some time, but this time he stepped off the cliff.

Dan Rather is guilty of not being skeptical enough about a story that was politically loaded.

Bill, I think you need to look at this through a different lens. Dan Rather is not the victim here. Being skeptical was not the issue. Dan was plenty skeptical about Bush’s ANG service–so much so that he grabbed the most damning evidence he could find without even looking at it. Is that journalism? Of course, we all know who really is to blame:

Unscrupulous people know that any accusation can be dumped on the Internet and within hours the mainstream media will pick it up.

I seem to remember that for nearly two weeks the Swift Boat controversey raged online before anyone in MSM picked up on it. By then all that remained was for John Kerry to offer contrary information, perhaps in the form of releasing his military records. And how long did it take before MSM picked up on the fake documents Rather offered up as proof of Bush’s failure to properly live up to his ANG requirements? Rather never admitted what we all could see was true–they were fake. The best he could do was say they weren’t authentic, but the material in them was. Doesn’t Bill consider that “unfair freedom of speech”?

Let’s talk about MSM and their standards. O’Reilly mentions Kitty Kelley’s book, filled with slander by anonymous sources, bemoaning that this information was printed on page one. Funny, I didn’t see much about it in the blogosphere except skepticism (unless you frequent far-left sites). It had no legs on the internet. But Kitty spent quite a few mornings on the network shows pimping the book, to the glee of folks like Katie Couric.

A click of the Internet mouse can wipe out a lifetime of honor and hard work. Just the accusation or allegation can be ruinous.

Aha! Now we understand. O’Reilly faced sexual harrassment charges, and eventually settled with his accuser. This article is really simply his way of telling us all he really wasn’t guilty–just a mouse click away from oblivion. When he finally falls from his perch, I anticipate we will all be blamed.

Glenn has more.