Tuesday, 26 April, 2005

Memogate ii, iii?  While I was looking over the 17 April outlook section (Washington Post)one last time before recycling , I glanced over Michael Getler's ombudsman column for that week  Getting Blogged Down in the News. When I first read it I had wanted to point it out. Better late then never. It has an illustrative quality.   The column deals with the history of the expanding Shiavo strategy memo affair: truth or vast left-wing conspiracy. I missed the entire first half of this when it occurred (bad blogger so very out-of-the-loop). I think I read about it first in the Washington Post's style section commenting chattily about another internet teapot tempest. Soon after a staffer from the office of Sen. Martinez (R-FL)] admitted to authoring the memo and resigned. There was no general admission or concern amonst the tribe who had leaped on this that they had been wrong or had worked hard to spread false information. There was nothing more than silence from that court. I could imagine a general shrug being given, but there no concern perceptable. They seem to be working to a lesser standard, if not from a different standard. Possibly from no standards whatsoever. That's a personal choice, boys.    Getler's piece makes it it clear that the story in its essential facts was solid from the start. A memo being circulated to republican leadership on the hill by republican staffers. The story was not handled strongly or consistently (largley due to weak secondary reporting work). This allowed those who desired doubt to claim it.   This brought to mind an article I also read last week (week before now)  AlterNet: MediaCulture:  The Two Faces of the Blogosphere Commenting on the apparent different styles between right leaning and left leaning. I don't buy the writer's premise entirely - Right wing web loggers are a closely coordinated on-message operative machine, the left is a loose collection of earnest engaged kids. It does mention that the Columbia Journalism Review did a report at some point on Memogate i  Blog-gate establishing that while the free republic and the powerline ended up being right on the questionability of The CBS piece, their initial set of assertions and material facts were not accurate. Normally I lean favorably towards claims for emergent values in networks - truth or "good information" its modern counterpart - being that value. If you're replacing that with something else you are just another non cooperator, and the game will withdraw from you. 11:54:34 PM    comment [];trackback [];

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. 2005 Paul Bushmiller. Last update: 5/04/05; 03:31:43.