| Here's today's Hartford Courant editorial lede on the decision by the Edwards family to continue John's presidential campaign after learning Elizabeth's cancer has metastasized.
The blogosphere wasted no time attacking John Edwards as heartless for continuing his presidential campaign as his wife struggles with a new bout of cancer. Um, what? And more importantly, who?
Despite two articles in the Courant yesterday on online politics, the Courant doesn't seem to have a damned clue as to what the blogosphere is. Does the Courant realize that "the blogosphere" has polar opposite political spheres? Does it realize that even within the liberal blogosphere some people aren't Edwards supporters?
The Courant editorial never again references "the blogosphere" or any attacks on "John Edwards as heartless" in the remainder of the piece. But because the majority of news coverage of blogs is about the liberal blogosphere and because the most successful campaigns organizing online are Democrats, the implication is that Democratic blogs are somehow the culprits that the Courant wishes to attack. But the editorialists don't have the courage or knowledge to get specific, instead leaving a massive straw man at the start of their piece.
The Courant's lack of specificity when levying this grand charge -- a charge that is in part true for Republican bloggers and some anti-Edwards Democrats, though more accurate when applied to Rush Limbaugh -- is nothing less than a deliberate effort to discredit all blogs and blogging, this site included. I could say "The media wasted no time attacking John Edwards as heartless for continuing his presidential campaign as his wife struggles with a new bout of cancer," and I'd be more accurate than the Courant thanks to the "some people" work of Katie Couric and the conspiracy theories of Rush Limbaugh.
The Courant editorial board is clearly threatened by blogs. While it's unlikely that David Lightman will be replaced by a swarm of committed citizen journalists stomping the halls of Congress to report the day's news, opinion journalism and news analysis provided by blogs gains attention because it is on whole a better alternative to the work of people like the Courant editorialists. Their generic, pro forma smear on blogs is evidence of both their fear of blogs and their willingness to resort to shoddy arguments in their editorials. The piece on whole is a solid justification for why Edwards should suffer recriminations for continuing to campaign; the attack on blogs is a straw man that diminishes the Courant's work tremendously in my eyes. Attacks on blogs are weak and played-out -- the Courant isn't doing itself any favors by picking fights with blogs. |
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