Something of Note about the Role of Blogs

I would never argue that blogs are some kind of threat to traditional forms of media or journalism, as some bloggers can tend to imply in the dizzying heights of blog triumphalism. But I would like to point out two specific recent instances where original reporting by blogs has opened up larger stories and actually had the type of impact journalism is meant to have, in that they brought more truth to the discourse.

Example #1: Glenn Greenwald and the DeWine Amendment.

On his blog, Unclaimed Territory, Glenn pointed to legislation that was introduced by Ohio Senator Mike DeWine in 2002 that sought to eliminate the same barrier in FISA that Gen. Michael Hayden argued the administration was necessitated to bypass for the NSA eavesdropping program. But at the time, the Bush Department of Justice objected to the legislation, arguing that FISA was fine as it was and the change might be unconstitutional. This revelation brought many new questions to the discussion of the NSA eavesdropping program and in effect shifted the discourse a bit. This story was picked up by the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, amongst other news media outlets. All gave credit to Glenn for first scooping the story.

Example #2: Nick Anthis and the Bush appointee

I noted before that a NASA scientist was complaining about having his voice muffled by political appointees of the Bush administration. Days later, another article came out that named George Deutsch as the person who actively tried to suppress the scientist as well as alter the language of NASA educational materials so that they allowed room for intelligent design. Two days ago on Feb 6th, on his blog called Scientific Activist, Nick Anthis posted that through his own reporting he had discovered that Deutsch had never graduated from Texas A & M, even tough news reports had listed him as a graduate. Today, the New York Times reports that Deutsch has resigned, at least partially over lying about his graduate status from Texas A & M. Just like with Greenwald, Anthis' blog was given a hat tip for making the initial discovery that opened up this new part of the story.

Now, these two cases by no means prove that bloggers are all journalists, but I do think they does throw spit in the eye of the argument that bloggers are nothing, but partisan and opinionated pundits. Some are, some aren't. There are many forms in the blogosphere. As Jay Rosen points out (well, he's quoting James W. Carey), journalism is a practice, not a label. You are a journalist when you are reporting on and recording for posterity what is going on in life, not just because you draw a paycheck from a news media institution. To me, the above mentioned examples are but two instances of how blogs can positively play into our culture and democracy.

- Glitter