Ted Rall has my number


My favorite liberal columnist takes bloggers to task in his column this week.

While most of Ted's inches are devoted to the domination of the blogosphere by frothing wingnuts, one thing he points out repeatedly hit us all where we live:
Bloggers are ordinary people, many of them uneducated and with nothing interesting to say. They're sitting in their rec rooms, regurgitating and spinning what real journalists have dug up through hard work. They don't have sources, they don't report, and no one holds them accountable when they make mistakes or flat out lie. Yeah, there's a new sheriff in town. Unfortunately he's drunk, he's mean, and he works for the bad guys.

I'm as guilty of this (the regurgitation, not working for bad guys) as anyone: We comb the newswires and post excerpts from interesting articles, perhaps with a line or two of our own analysis. At its best we provide a filtering service, combining the most titillating quotes and sound bites from a day's worth of news in a string of posts that the already-converted can read in one place rather than having to do the half-hour of work it took us to find them in the first place.

What's missing is real analysis, real thought. Looking back over my own posts I feel like I haven't been doing enough of that. The filtering service is valuable, but it's not enough. I'm proud of my coverage of the San Francisco Kerry event earlier this month, but that's the only original reporting I've done so far.

The problem is that original thought is hard. Not since I wrote a column for my college newspaper have I had to come up with something original to say on anything resembling a regular basis. It's a lot fucking easier to wrap three sentences of my own around ten sentences of someone else's. But if that's all I'm doing, what's the point?

So, Ted, while you didn't intend to slam liberal bloggers and probably didn't want to shut anyone up: I QUIT.

Kidding. What I'm really going to do is try to focus more on original articles. My goal is one a day. Starting...you know, Monday. For the unlucky dozen or so of you who find yourselves inexorably drawn back here every day: feel free to ride me if I don't deliver.

Posted: Fri - February 25, 2005 at 10:11 AM   | Category:     |   |   | |


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