Sorry, but I can't take what I'm seeing here today. I can't take it anymore.
There's been a lot of kneejerk reactions and general attacks being thrown out today on these very pages over something that Connie Schultz of the Cleveland Plain Dealer said today. the quote that has earned her a day in the penalty box?
The so-called citizen journalism of most blogs is an affront to those of us who believe reporting and attribution must precede publication. Fact-checking is tedious; it often derails juicy rumor and deflates many a story.
So far that very comment has earned a lot at hate here at DK. And I imagine I'm about to get some anger and bile spat at me too for defending her.
First of all, her quote says "MOST blogs". Not ALL blogs, but MOST blogs. Let's run down a list of blogs and see how many of them actually do fact-checking and dare to hold off on a hot story before they publish it. I bet you too will find that MOST blogs do not do any fact-checking.
Markos runs a pretty clean ship here and his writers have the professionalism to avoid the brunt of Schultz's words. So does John Aravosis and several other prominent bloggers I peruse from time to time. Which is why she chose the words "MOST blogs".
But would any of you disagree with the idea that Drudge Report doesn't fact-check? Red State? Free Republic? How about any of the HUGE numbers of blogs that are run by birthers and/or Clinton-killed-a-guy-just-to-watch-him-die theorists?
How about the so-called "9/11 Truthers"??? Or the PUMAs?
Schultz dared to use the word "blog" in an article and she discussed how anonymous reporting is often dangerous.
And you know what? She's right.
As a medium, bloggers are still largely unreliable. Not FULLY unreliable. But a soapbox and a bullhorn does not give you journalistic credibility. You have to EARN that. In my opinion, Kos has earned that. But certainly not EVERY blogger has.
But yet, for her writing that now infamous paragraph, she's been attacked as a "stenographer", an "idiot", that her career is in a downspin, and several other attacks unworthy of her character.
People began attacking her just because she dared to speak out against "MOST blogs". Isn't that the kind of ad hominem attacks you would find at any number of right-wing blogs? And a lot of you just fell in line and attacked without even knowing what you were attacking.
I used to think that it was horrible when anybody who spoke out against Bush was immediately labeled a traitor, accused of treason and calls began for deportation.
Today, many of you were no better than that.
I personally know Connie Schultz. I know her to be a champion of journalistic ethics and a true person of integrity. She's been through more battles in her real life than I ever care to face.
Maybe that's why she has a Pulitzer Award with her name on it.
Maybe that's why Schultz and her husband, solid-to-the-core liberal Senator Sherrod Brown, are admired throughout the great state of Ohio.
Today, Connie Schultz challenged you to prove that blogs are better than a lot of people say they are.
And your response? You grabbed the first pile of feces you could find and flung it at a wall.
I would have expected that from MOST blogs, but not this one.
Let the attacks on me begin. That's what they do at Free Republic, so I suppose it'll happen here too.