Why the Blogosphere Exists

Have you ever wondered why blogs have flourished? Are there so many of us who are egocentric enough that we just have to see our words published for the world to see? Or maybe it is that we are so frustrated that the current mainstream media is actively promoting a world view that is very foreign to our own. They are no longer purveyors of objective news but rather cogs in a great big propaganda machine. Read this piece by Orson Scott Card. It should serve as an examination of conscience for every American journalist:

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

Please read the entire essay. The above only gives you the flavor. I am not saying that blogs are objective sources of news and facts. I am saying that the once respected job of a journalist as the guardian of full public disclosure has degenerated into the fully partisan spin doctor. There are sides to every story that are being intentionally left unsaid. Blogs are trying to fill that gap.

(H/T to David Alexander for the link)