I wasn't awake when
Nightline came on last night, but I used my handy-dandy DVR because I really wanted to see
Maura in VA as they interviewed her. I didn't know that the entire show was about bloggers and blogging, however. I'm sure folks blogged this live as it was happening, but I'm going to do a broad summary and highlights of what I thought were the more salient details here in my diary today.
Setting the Tone
The first thing I found interesting was the way Nightline introduced blogging with a patina of legitimacy and power - two comments in the introduction really caught my attention:
1. "...everywhere fledgling forms of the media must undergo certain rites of passage before they are taken seriously."
2. "...according to the Pew Research center, their reach is growing fast. 32 million Americans now read blogs, a jump of nearly 60% in 2004."
This all occurred within the first few minutes of the introduction on the subject of blogging - I felt it immediately set the stage for a discussion of blogging as the next great wave in journalism and I couldn't have been more pleased with the tone.
Meet the Bloggers
Another thing that struck me was the selection of bloggers to highlight. The reporting ocrrespondent on the story was John Donvan - his first stop was in Cambridge, MA at a house where a group of bloggers meet every Thursday night to, as he put it, "...well, blog." What was odd about his discussion in this room full of bloggers was his seeming surprise when he asked whether or not each of the bloggers would be blogging about Nightline's presence in the room. Of course, it was all they were blogging about at that moment and, as a blogger, I found the question a bit silly.
Then Donvan's report cuts to our own Maura in VA but with the same kind of silly voice-over about the fact that Maura was blogging about the Nightline interview as it was happening. He then refers to the interviewing and footage process as a "weird dance - bloggers watching journalists watching bloggers watching journalists..." You get the idea.
The Power of the Blogs
After what I would consider the "color" background of blogging and bloggers, Donvan sets the stage for the real (ahem) reporting, talking about how some bloggers have "...danced some journalists' careers right off a cliff." Cut to Dan Rather apologizing on national television. Cut from that to split-screen of Eason Jordan (former CNN exec) and screenshot of Forum Blog (credited with forcing Jordan out of his job). Cut from that to the proverbial moneyshot itself - our friend James D. Guckert sitting in the White House press room asking The Question. The exact language of Donvan's voice-over is worth repeating:
"...and bloggers - who heard a reporter named Jeff Gannon lob a big fat softball to George Bush [cut to Guckert asking The Question] and then discovered that Jeff Gannon is actually Jim Guckert. And they found naked pictures of him on the internet [cut to splitscreen of Guckert after asking question (left side) and Guckert posed on one of his escort sites with private area grayed out (right side)] and now, neither Guckert, Jordan, nor, as of tomorrow, Dan Rather have their old jobs anymore."
...huh? Sorry. I was revelling in that splitscreen of Guckert. A few thoughts on that section - one, it showed the power of blogs and bloggers to really take people down. That's good. Two, it really glossed over the details and, in my opinion, sold short the specific work of bloggers in exposing these things. I also had wished Donvan had mentioned, along with the Guckert naked pictures, the gay male prostitute angle. But that's another story, I hope.
They then transition a bit and start talking about blogging as a "quantum leap" in the way people communicate. They underscore what is, to bloggers, obvious: the power of a blog to reach people you never new existed. They do a pretty nice transition from there to showing two computer screens, the one on the left with the home page of The New York Times on the screen and the one on the right showing a randomly chosen blog (in this case, Junkyard Sports) on the right. They make the point that the Times is rich and Junkyard Sports is not - but their power to publish on the internet is equal. Good point, Donvan. Obvious, but good.
I actually laughed at the next part, because Donvan talks, very seriously, about the technology of "linking". This is spoken in much the same way you would explain a very complex concept to a very small child. He's simply talking about the power of linking related people, subjects, concepts etc. contained within a blog. I'm sorry if I sound a bit pompous here - but is linking really such a revolutionary concept?
Back to our heroine, Maura in VA. Without even looking one bit like she thought Donvan was a total idiot for being so enamored of "linking" she gave a very smart and well articulated comment on how it allows others to become involved in a story as they go along. What this enquiring mind want to know is if Maura really, really wanted to give him some "you must be an idiot" look. I know I would have.
After the commercial and some commentary on popular definitions of "blog", they return to Maura, whom they continually refer to as "the schoolteacher". They talk with Maura about her efforts, with others, to monitor the progress of legislation in the state of Virginia. Enter John Cosgrove, Repub representative in the Virginia House of Delegates and his now nearly infamous "miscarriage" legislation. Donvan has Maura explain the issue (ridiculously abridged, Maura and others, while monitoring bills proposed in the Virginia legislature, caught language in a particular bill that would make it illegal for a woman who suffered a miscarriage to fail to report it within a specified time period. The penalty for failure to report also included possible jail time. Visit Democracy for Virginia for all the real details), and again, she does a great job of encapsulating what would otherwise be a complicated issue and articulating only the important facts. Cut to a full screen screenshot of DailyKos with the introduction that, when Maura received no answer to an email she had sent Cosgrove, she blogged. Donvan's fasination with linking comes in here again, showing Maura's links to Cosgrove's bill in the legislature, links to important legal definitions, and what he called her "editorial flourish". Donvan does a good job of explaining how Maura's blogs were linked by other sites and ends with Cosgrove talking about the dramatically increased level of emails he started receiving on the subject. They conclude this segment with the headlines of Cosgrove withdrawing the bill in question - Maura 1, Cosgrove 0. Maura's comment at the end of the segment is worth quoting. When asked how she felt when she heard that Cosgrove had withdrawn the bill, she said:
"Oh I was delighted. It was great. I mean, I think it was proof that ordinary citizens can really make a difference in what our legislators do. But I got these hundreds of emails from women who had never been involved in politics who'd never written to a legislator before who'd never written a letter before who said 'we did it - oh my God - we made this happen'."
Nicely put, Maura. It's good to remember when we're surrounded by news we think is bad that we also have the power to affect change - one person, one issue at a time. But I digress.
The Ethics of the Blogosphere
After the commercial break, they return to the camera shot of the two computers - The New York Times is on the left-hand screen, and Maura's Democracy for Virginia is on the right-hand screen. The relevant quote is this:
"...media on the left. And on the right... also media?"
Cut to Virginia Delegate Cosgrove again, explaining that Maura, in his view, is media. She has an audience. As such, she has obligations. His primary problem, given this, is that Maura never contacted him (she did actually). Maura's response sums it up nicely:
"I don't think that any citizen should have to wait for a legislator's permission to share her concerns about legislation. I mean it's... Once you introduce a bill into the legislature it's part of the public record."
Cosgrove invokes the "mainstream" media and notes that he's dealt with newspapers, radio stations and television stations who have not once run a story without running it by him first. Maura responds that she's not a broadcaster - she takes far more editorial license than she would expect a reporter to do because she's an activist. Maura 2, Cosgrove 0.
Donvan then launches into the ethical questions of blogging and the place of bloggers in the media. Donvan notes that Maura considers herself a private citizen and asks the question if Maura, and others like her, have an obligation to tell someone she's writing about them and has an audience. Maura's response:
"I don't think so. Uh uh. [Donvan: "Because?"] Because we're not in a separate category of human beings. We're not in a separate category of citizens. We're just citizens with our concern. I mean, frankly, my website got maybe, you know, a few hundred at most hits a day before this happened."
Donvan points out quite forcefully that Maura was "scrupulously accurate" in her original entries. This leads to a discussion of the inaccuracies that crept in as other commented and posted. Maura acknowledged this. Cosgrove himself then goes on to say that a number of the emails he received were "vulgar" and linked to information that was just inaccurate.
The group of Cambridge bloggers chimes in on the issue of accuracy and how the blogosphere should address the issues of standards and how blogs can step out of their so-called "media infancy".
My note here: it's good to realize that the bad things we post reflect every bit as much on us and what we're trying to accomplish even more so than the overwhelmingly /good things we post.
Wrapping up the Show
The show's wrap-up is about the bloggers themselves, blogging on the subject of the Nightline report as it happened. The quotes they pick out are:
"They want to regulate!"
"So far, pretty positive, ay????"
"Blogging is a brawl."
"Yes, if journalists were doing their job and not being correupted, they wouldn't have to worry about bloggers doing their jobs for them. Wake up journalists! Take back your honor and profession!"
"Poor description of links. He didn't explain the purpose of linking. It makes it sound random and without logical meaning or sequence."
[and from Maura in VA]
"So far, I prefer the visual anonymity of my keyboard. This is frikkin' scary!!!!"
"How fun to blog when they are talking about us blogging. Do you think they suspect that we are doing this?"
He wraps with giving the bloggers credit for giving those in the "traditional news business" a "swift kick in the pants" and comments that they are forced to be "more careful, accurate and thorough". He refers to the collective blogging community as "invaluable for bringing new information to light" but that the "lighting speed" and tendency of some to "shoot first and ask questions later" should raise a yellow flag. He falls just short of lecturing with this next:
"Good journalism is tedious. It requires legwork, research and editing. Even that does not preclude the big mistakes as the bloggers themselves have so clearly exposed. But over time such tedious work is the price of credibility, and the new media kids on the block will have to earn that one blogger at a time."
Personally, I accept the challenge.
My Impressions
While there were some things that caused me to raise and eyebrow, I really felt that overall, this was a very favorable and formidible program dedicated solely to the advent of blogging. I thought it really hit the high points and underscored the valid concerns as blogs and bloggers attempt to claim their place in the media hierarchy.
A few of the points made are ones that I think, in my experience, most dKosers already feel: that our attention to detail and willingness to self-regulate is key to transitioning from what we are today to what we will be in the very near future.
If you haven't seen it, I don't know as I write this whether or not there is a streaming link or a way to obtain a copy. I don't think a transcript or this diary entry does it justice. Perhaps if someone out there knows how to obtain a copy, they can post the information in the comments. It feels, to me, like something I want to keep if for no other reason than that it could potentially be a footnote, sometime in the future, that explains the revolution and the advent of the blogophere.