Journalist thinks blogging is dangerous...for whom?
By bluegal Thursday Dec 13, 2007 8:03pm
In an op-ed piece for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution entitled "Unfettered 'citizen journalism' too risky", David Hazinski, a former NBC correspondent and associate professor of telecommunications at the University of Georgia, says that
...having just anyone produce widely distributed stories without control can have the reverse effect from what advocates intend. It's just a matter of time before something like a faked Rodney King beating video appears on the air somewhere....Journalism organizations should head that off. Citizen reports can be a valuable addition to news and information flow with some protections:
• Major news organizations must create standards to substantiate citizen-contributed information and video, and ensure its accuracy and authenticity.
• They should clarify and reinforce their own standards and work through trade organizations to enforce national standards so they have real meaning.
• Journalism schools such as mine at the University of Georgia should create mini-courses to certify citizen journalists in proper ethics and procedures, much as volunteer teachers, paramedics and sheriff's auxiliaries are trained and certified.
Um, Mister Hazinski sir? There are just a few bloggers who would like to have a word with you....
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Thank goodness for bloggers. I cant stand to watch fox news or cnn. At least the truth comes out on the net. Media cant control the net right now. They see it as a threat to revenue. Anyone who thinks the media is looking out for you is a fool. They wish another terrorist attack would happen. Only means more viewers which mean more revenue.
Why do you think they spent so much time on that idiotic airport failure of bombing in london. I SWEAR that car was on fire for 5 days.
Wouldn't be to shocked if they regulate the Internet a some point.
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but a lot of these points seem to say more to normal journalists that they should really verify where this information comes from instead of running with it... which they should be doing in the first place. I think the phrasing of it is rather dismissive (and I suppose even slightly insulting) of bloggers, but I almost think it reflects worse on "real" journalists in a way. I guess it's hard for me to know one way or another because I don't know his real intention.
I mean, really, no one of note is going to report much from blogs that aren't established anyway. It's not that easy to be deemed important amongst a sea of bloggers.
How about first focusing on resurrecting the erstwhile legitimacy of the MAINSTREAM MEDIA and holding so-called "professional journalists" to the criteria listed above? Whoe knows? Maybe we could have avoided a FUCKING WAR and save A MILLION FUCKIN LIVES.
Guy's got a point. What if completely unfounded rumors regarding weapons of mass destruction started an unjustified march to war?
Journalist, but not all, are dangerous.
They can take their fast food style of news and shove it!
*For the administration to consider making into an article*
Lt. Col. Andrew Horne (Ret.) has Announced His Candidacy for Senate!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=l8qfFOJZDbg
This unfettered blogging must be stopped. Only the Reich-wing and Fixed News should be allowed to post.Next thing you know they will need to check our mail and listen to our phone calls. Soon they will be kicking down doors and hauling people away to secret prisons.There will be lawless private armies committing rape and killing innocent people, but at least the internet will be free of wanton blogging.
This freedom of speech thing could destroy freedom of speech.
If I was a pen and paper writer, or teacher to the future pen and paper reporters, whether it be in newspaper, magazine, whatever I would start bashing the bloggers to. Look at the traffic sites like this one get, in all seriousness blogs like this one, quality, up to the minute with both humor and entertainment thrown in will eventually put the pen and paper, beat writer out of business. Since I opted to get my news through means such as this site, opposed to a newspaper or magazine subscription two things happened. First I saved a little bit of money, and second I started became a lot more aware of what was going on in day to day happening. (politically speaking). Anyways, sorry about that, and have a good night!
http://www.crooksandliars.com
Sounds like this chap wants to control what we get to see and comment on. I notice him missing this point over Rush, FOX and the rest of the outright liars. A thing those who believe in the new political super-highway, known as the blogosphere, there will be an increasing pressure for the establishment to find ways to control it. I see it happening now.
Yellow journalism of Faux and CNN is very dangerous: fact.
Do something about that!
fiver @ 5:
I would be named FOX.
journalists are running scared...they know their way of life is doomed by the new media
in other news...the dems fuck up again
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/New_Attorney_General_stonewalls_Senate_ove...
surprise...our new ag wont turn over intel on the cia destroying the video tapes of torture
hahahahaha
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/New_Attorney_General_stonewalls_Senate_ove...
Adam @ 12:
CNN was the fairest news station out there when Ted Turner owned it but now it's getting pitiful !
If the journalists did their job....they might actually get some respect from the internet.But as it stands..........give me the internet....at least then I can decide for myself what is real and what is bullshit.All you gotta do is dig.That's what drives them crazy.....finding out for yourself.What is real and what is bullshit.Now the media looks like they been bought...and they have been.At least here there is an unadulterated opinion.....all you have to do is research,and it's right at your finger tips.
The AJC has two good blogs to argue with the wingnut kooks.
Liberal:
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/shared-blogs/ajc/luckovich/index.html
Wingnut:
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/shared-blogs/ajc/thinkingright/index....
There are no standards or monitors.
Funny thing about professional journalists. Like the Easter Bunny they don't exist. As a professional engineer I have to meet certain obligations, many of an ethical nature, in order to remain in good standing in my profession. If I don't I will lose my license to practice. The same concept applies, of course to a myriad of true professions: doctors , lawyers, nurses etc. All these professions have enforceable standards and a license to prove it. I have yet to see a journalism license nor,frankly, would I want to. Do I prefer to read journalism by a passionate amateur who may lack resources to really investigate an issue or a so-called professional who in most cases types what he is paid to type? Good question . I like to take it on a case by case basis. I will say this, I'll take this blog over most network news any day of the week.
This guy is right. Without journalists, we'd never know what's going on with Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton.
I love it! Where can I order that T-Shirt?
I want my T-shirt too.
L.A. Confidential @ 2:
Heh, I'll be surprised if they don't. I mean, they do keep trying.
The trick will be to educate ourselves enough about the technology so that it largely can not be regulated.
Interestingly enough, one of the most interesting essays on that topic was written long before any of us even thought about the internet. German philosopher Hans Magnus Enzensberger wrote Constituents of a Theory of the Media. The section concerning Orwell always intrigued me, since Enzensberger argues that Orwell was wrong to fear government control of technology -- that technology, especially computer technology would not be controllable. In so writing, he predicted the internet, citizen media and blogs. Not with those words, of course, but in an almost eerie fashion, considering that the essay was published in 1970!
It's a somewhat dense read, but fascinating. Click the link if you're so inclined. (It's from what was then thought of as a Marxist or Socialist perspective, but would today be thought of more as radical democracy.)
MSM "worried" about blogs. Means only one thing: Blogs are a credible threat. Keep blogging. A nice check on the MSM, Congress, and this President. Lazy US government and media. Use your first Amendment rights: The MSM and US government are part of the problem, not the solution.
fiver @ 5:
Imagine! It would be horrible, outrageous, and totally unacceptable!
"Professionalism" was the worst thing that happened to journalism. Before the rise of Walter Lippmann, et. al., people knew which sides of the ideological spectrum their papers and radio programs came from. Under the guises of "objectivity" and "fair and balanced", corporate and government propaganda comes out looking like it makes sense and its just a "natural way of doing things".
Propaganda wasn't served up as being objective back then - it was served up as propaganda. Lately I've been wondering if that isn't a better thing to do. Why won't FOX, CNN, MSNBC, etc. just come out and say they're propagandists rather than live in a state of denial? Maybe people will respect them more. I know I personally respect blogs more because with a little bit of reading I can determine which side they're coming from - and I like that.
MSM is running scared these days - they don't have complete control like they used to and so you'll see little snipes like these from time to time.
Keep on blogging in the free world...
Major news organizations must create standards to substantiate citizen-contributed information and video, and ensure its accuracy and authenticity.
Just some simple edits for the "professional" journalists:
Major news organizations must
createreview their old standards to substantiatecitizen-contributedthe information and video they've been peddling lately, and ensure its accuracy and authenticity.You can hardly blame the mainstream media stenographers, er, I mean journalists, for attacking bloggers. The journalists must be terrified that the bloggers will render them obsolete. It's true, of course, that among the millions of blog posts and comments written each day, some are vituperative, nasty, silly or untrue. That sounds like the First Amendment in all its glory to me.
The only true bloggers are Michelle Malkin and Drudge.
"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..."
Now STFU, Mr. Hazinski. Sir.
When we talk about people like Drudge, Malkin et al., then we can see the point he's making.
PBS>Blogs>CNN, MSNBC>Fox News
Kettle meets pot. Journalism isn't something I've seen in the MSM. Instead we see pundits yelling at each other and sensational headlines. I watched Lou Dobbs last night (wasn't my choice) and I was amazed that an hour of demanding stronger deportation laws and adding "communist" before everytime he refered to China is considered Journalism. If we are going to have opinion in news then it shouldn't serve coporate interests. Blogs may not be the epitome of journalism, but at least they aren't owned by 6 corporations pushing their agenda.
"Major news organizations must create standards to substantiate citizen-contributed information and video, and ensure its accuracy and authenticity."
Did they really just go there?
David Hazinsky: Ivory towered elitist.
And with's with that Museum of Tolerance, huh? They ought to be ashamed for exaggerating the number of people killed under Hitler.
He's just pissed because there are many hard working citizens out here hustling to get the truth out instead of just soaking up the BS the MSM passes off as journalism. Many bloggers work a hell of a lot harder to run their sites than most of these armchair stenographers. Which journalism school did Thomas Paine attend?
Quaker Dave @ 30: Right on dude.
Good heavens! I live in Georgia, and, David Hazinski, it is the main stream media that needs your preachments, not the blogs. Who supported Bush's claims of Iraq having WMD WAY beyond the time when bloggers knew the WMDs were a lie? Who supported Bush's claims that his administration doesn't torture, when we know they do? Who supported the government's "talking points" about how great the war is going in Iraq, when bloggers knew this is untrue as well?
Sorry, but a large segment of America no longer trusts the MSM, and they go to the blogs to get links to reports that strip away the propaganda. You should be teaching your students to dig for the truth, not worry about bloggers.
Only a matter of time?? Is this guy for real? I guess he's so blind that he doesn't realize how often this kind of thing already happens. David, sorry to tell you but your precious system of journalism has already been compromised for some time now.
The journalism virus is clearly more than an urban legend. This guy's IQ has vanished, and he's still publishing!
um yeah, like when the florida courts decided a half dozen years ago that the "news" being broadcast by a Faux affiliate did not have to be factually true?
sounds like the guy is afraid of the competition for shaping the reality of the masses.
Like CNN when Ted owned it, the Atlanta Constitution was once a great newspaper - when Ralph McGill was editor.
Just take a look at the AJC home page - way more info-tainment than news.
Clean your OWN house first - "journalist" !!!
Just think - if you guys had been doing your job, maybe your livelihood would not now be threatened by (*shudder* .. *shriek*) citizen journalists !!
Hazinski sounds like a right wing fascist, afraid of citizens speaking truth to power. F*ck him!
And here I sat with this stupid idea that simply the present day journalists had chosen to ignore their standards. Thanks to the NBC correspondent named above, I now know for sure, most journalists aren't even apparently aware of basic journalist protocal; checking sources, self policing standards of compliance and ethics.
I thought it was bad enough that news organizations had basically sold their skills and their direction to the highest bidder years ago. Now I find, they are so devoid of either, when a correspondent speaks of such, it becomes newsworthy. Pathetic.
After certifying blogers i guess we should certify conversationalists.
Our town squares are gone. They have been replaced by shopping malls The thing is you can't leaflet or make a speech in a shoping mall. It is illegal.
The internet is now our town square where we can say what we think and we can say what we like.
After looking at the "certified journalists" in this country for the past forty years the people on the internet as uncertified as they may be are a lot more informed and informative than this pro censorship columnist.
Man. Talk about Henny Penny bullshit!
Scott @ 4:
You said it!
here is no licensing, testing, mandatory education or boards of review. Most other professions do a poor job of self-regulation, but at least they have mechanisms to regulate themselves. Journalists do not.
• Major news organizations must create standards to substantiate citizen-contributed information and video, and ensure its accuracy and authenticity.
Journalists have no regulations but cell-phone and video evidence captured by citizens are subject to scrutiny.
Long Live Evidence.
I'm of mixed mind about David Hazinski's piece. There are sloppy, regurgitative, unprincipled citizen journalists; and bloggers, just like anybody else, can be easily seduced by the notion they are a band of brave freethinkers railing against "the man." But honestly, the news media has absolutely no moral authority left "to monitor and regulate this new trend." Remember, this is the industry that hired Karl Rove as a political commentator, forgives factual errors if dressed up as "opinion pieces" (hello Joe Klein), allows political talk shows to degenerate into shouting matches, and whose culture of professional courtesy discourages journalists from calling out their seedy and boneheaded colleagues.
Pazuzu's Petals @ 46:
I have to disagee. If Hillary gets elected i will be railing against the woMAN.
fishwrap gatekeepers get the bozack
It was 12/12/00.
Our country was stolen out from under us due to the abject failure of our "professional" media.
This seems to be an example of the "hubris" of education", or the rationalization of "standards" that keepothers out. Our society has become based on "false" criteria of intelligence and competency. It says to all that one must met a certain "level" of education to perform. I wish that we would return to the days that people were guaged simply on performance. There was a timewhen folkssimply took a test to become a lawyer. Abraham Lincoln comes to mind. No more. There must be a delayed entry into the work force now with many arbitrary barriers to professions. Just think what might happen if people were judged by a true marketplace based on performance not degree.
cHARLES rILEY @ 50:
Its worse than you might think. More and more low paying jobs require you to apply on the internet. No face to face (even to get a job application) is possible unless you are filtered through a "system."
MacDaKnife @ 11:
Like rallying around weak figures like Markos and forcing blogs like C&L to be ever more "politically correct" and to hire the "right, moderate people".
celsius @ 52:
Puleeze! C&L is moderate enough. :)
"Unfettered citizen journalism" - too risky.
But unfettered growth and profits of corporations - JUST PEACHY!
Unfettered government corruption - JUST GREAT!
Didnt anyone tell this guy the news was cancelled so the people have to get the word out now?
yeah! you can't have these goddamned citizens actually publishing their opinions and the facts on the ground! we need the msm, and its corporate overlords to have a monopoly on information! otherwise, how are we going to continue to lie our toadying asses off? how will we continue to pull the wool over everyone's eyes? how else will we continue to focus YOUR attention on what WE authorize?
i got a few words for that prof: fuck you, you fascist piece of shit. long live the UNfettered internet with its pesky citizen reporters who won't be bought off and aren't afraid to speak truth to power. msm journalism is a joke and dead on arrival. go look for brittney's panties while we point out the fascist takeover of this country.
fiver @ 5:
Jesus, you're right. And what if they advocated the establishment of something like a Department of Homeland Security which would bleed the federal budget while it used some contrived stupidity like a color-code system to keep everyone afraid? And what if they advocated the commandeering of the Justice Department to serve as a punitive force against its enemies? And what if they advocated subverting individual Constitutional rights and wanted the phones, computers, and all personal information of the citizenry monitored? Holy shit. Then we'd really have a mess on our hands!
Not only is that clown in favour of silencing any but "official" voices, he's advocating violence. How wonderful.
There wouldn't be political bloggers if the media were doing its job. Just like any capitalist society, individual entrepreneurs are filling the need that big business fails to address. Clearly, Hazing-ski is anti-capitalist.
Here's Hazing-ski's email and phone number if you want to - politely - tell that buffoon what you think:
David Hazinski
706/542-4976
hazinski@uga.edu
Oh no! Blogging and independent journalism might undercut the profits of Mr. Hazinski's corporate masters. Why doesn't MSM take a look at what they're putting out: baseball steroids scandal, OJ Simpson scandal, Peterson case, etc. Booorrriiinggg. No wonder there's a need for blogs.
xoites defends Constitution @ 47:
Touché!
Karen @ 23:
The Internet is very well controlable. Look at China.
fiver @ 5:
HAHAHA, can't add anything to that, its beautiful. Only wish that numbskull would see it, and understand it. Doubt that even if he saw your sarcastic wit he would get it. Cheers
Sure David, just pains you to have average Joe's keep the mass media on topic and honest. OH I guess bloggers should stop and read about all the REAL news on Britany Spears.
liberalista @ 57:
Let him review the work of the American Revolution writers against the tyranny of King George the Third, The bloggers are the New American Revolution and need a podium that is unfiltered by fascist.
Pazuzu's Petals @ 61:
Last week I was interviewed by a journalism student who said of course he could not be honest under the schools policy. How long has that been in force in our fourth estate?
Yes, we can't have just anyone reporting on things they have seen or commenting on the news and events of the day. We need professionals and those in authority to do that sort of thing. You know, keep the riff-raff out of it.
Fabricated, overblown news reports? In my mainstream media?
Imagine if bloggers were to publish stories without proving they are true. Let's say, like: Iraq has WMD, or warning of "mushroom clouds", or WWIII. Or Iran is the biggest nu-ku-lar weapons threat on the planet. Wait a minute...
Now they realize these same bloggers -they used to deride- actually have a lot of power and need to be MUZZLED so the GOP/BuchCo. agenda can march along, unfettered. I see.
L.A. Confidential @ 2:
People (American citizens) might actually react to that, unlike simple NSA spying. That might directly interfere in their lives, and inconvenience them, and that's the only way they'd react.
If you've got nothing to hide, freedom of speech can't possibly bother you... right.
The power to decide what is newsworthy is a power the elite do not want to let loose of.
Man, I'm really sick of these ignorant, condescending blogger-bashing pieces written by people who clearly don't read the major liberal blogs.
When you write something to be taken seriously, you should be pretty darn sure that somebody legitimate can support your claims.
There, I just summed up what journalism is about. I also summed up why Fox News and other reichwing propaganda outlets are NOT journalism. People like Bill O'Reilly don't give a flying fuck if global warming is true or not; their bosses tell them to shit on the story, so they do. Same goes for most of the MSM - they do what they're told, regardless of what the truth is. That's why they give equal time and equal weight to scientists, creationists and tobacco lobbyists. Today's "journalists" spend their miserable careers selling the public the big lie that all arguments are equal, that any guy in a suit is equivalent to a researcher that spends twenty years studying some specialized phenomenon of nature.
That's the problem with a "career" in journalism - Some boss will always have you by the paycheck, so you feel pressure to write what the boss wants. Bloggers don't feel that money pressure (we do unrelated things for a living), so we are free to write what we feel is true. Or better yet, we write what we're darn sure somebody legitimate can back up.
Isn't there something about glass houses and throwing stones that would be fitting here?
Get back to me after you get Faux News to comply w/ any kind of reasonable "fair and balanced" journalistic standards
... then we'll talk.
This guy must be totally anal. Unfettered makes fascists sit up and take notice! Unfettered is what Amerika should be!! Unfettered makes the people unpredictable and in a democracy I think that's an awesome, powerful thing! It's a GOOD thing!! If he thinks things aren't being faked already where is the bubble he lives in becawwwse...we have a faked-up war in progress, Ohio was lost to Bush due to faking and fraud no less, we HAD an attorney general (small letters) who faked being an attorney general and we have an angry stupid man pretending to be vice president. Let's shoot straight ok! Especially since this turd worked for a "major" network, he's just full of shit.
Foul mouther blogger of the LEFT??? That just goes to show that the bloggers from the LEFT are having an effect on the news....I can not stand to read any of the right wing bloggers, Malken, Drudge, Savage, heck if you want filth, foul mouthed, hate and vile just read ONE of THEIR'S, that's where the foul smell is coming from.
But we who know the truth...know the truth.
"Fake beating video? We can't afford a fake beating video; we'll have to use a real one. How many do we have Jimmy?"
You have the wrong idea about professional journalists. Not only do they have standards, but they have DOUBLE the standards of anyone else!
"It’s just a matter of time before something like a faked Rodney King beating video appears on the air somewhere…."
It's been said well in 99% of the previous comments, but ... when I read this, my first thought was of the fucking fake turkey.
Now, here is a good example of what he means. Your headline is out of proportion to the text you cited. You moron, you proved his point. Take a class.
But the press has done such a bang-up job to this point, why should anyone NOT trust them. (Where do I go to return a UGA degree?)
Journalism has been outsourced to the global community! The MSM is bummed because after so many years of consolidating their power they never expected something like Internet to screw it up for them. Competition can be so frustrating huh DH?
The danger is corporate controlled media. That's why there once were laws against it.
Hazinski is merely confusing "journalism" with "live reporting," and #39 is right.
On Friday the WAPO's Jonathan Weisman said: Huh? We've now had one, probably two, presidents who smoked pot. We haven't had one who did the hard stuff.
Anyone can see Bush picking his nose on youtube or google his 1972 arrest for Cocaine. These gatekeepers in the Corporate State Controlled Media lied to us about 9/11, the Anthrax Attacks, Iraq, Iran, FISA, Torture, etc, etc. After WW2 the German Media were 'brought to justice' for their war crimes. I can only hope that the US Media is brought to justice as well someday.
hazinski@grady.uga.edu
Hmm-mm-mm......I thought one of the basic principles of our nation, our democracy, was that a free and unfettered exchange of ideas was important, if not required, in order for it to thrive. The role of the press (journalism) was simply to gather these ideas and report them; disseminate them to the citizens so they would have information with which to make decisions.
Certainly, journalists and reporters are also entitled to their ideas and opinions - that's why op ed pages exist. But, when info appears on op-ed pages we know that the stuff represents the thoughts, opinions of the writer about the facts, not that it is the actual facts. This is an important distiction and one that seems to be disappearing from daily discourse.
MSM is mostly just propaganda to support corporate-fascist-government aims. They form the opinons and tell folks what to think; they are not in the business of encouraging freedom of thought and opinion. Blogs and internet sites at least offer more information, more details, and differing points of view. I can read them all and decide for myself what to believe. With the MSM, it's all the same crap on every outlet - just tweaked a little.
But, Hazinski's rant is laughable and moot. All of this journalism stuff - blogs, internet and all - will be replaced in the near future by having everything you need to know sent directly into your brain through your cell phone or the RFID chip you'll need to have implanted to move about the country!!
Translation: "We've lost control of your minds and want to gain it back. WAHHH WAHH WAH"
Fuck you
1984 is right around the corner, I can imagine a time when might be forced to watch the brainwashing box.
I heard a panel discussion on NPR recently about media issues. What struck me – to the point of blubbering outrage at an inanimate radio speaker – was Judith Miller ‘s (and as I remember it one of the other panelists) horror at those upstart bloggers who don’t and can’t live up to the high standards of the professional news media. Would those be the same professionals who invested untold hours of news coverage in presenting information about semen stains on a blue dress, who snickered knowingly as they kept alive demonstrably untrue accounts of a candidates claims of inventing the internet, who elevated “beerability” to the criterion of utmost importance in choosing a president, who delve with ferocious resolve into the crucial national issues of pantsuits and cleavage, haircut pricing, and speculation about the hunting prowess of presidential candidates in an alternate universe, who gleefully marched in lockstep with a willfully and utterly ignorant administration into a two trillion dollar moral and policy debacle of a war, whose jaws dropped in utter amazement at the unpredictability of an economy teetering near collapse because of unprecedented levels of debt and unregulated financial shenanigans and economic policy that inflated an enormous housing bubble and entrapped consumers between its collapse and skyrocketing payments, who revise their copy with a criminal administrations Orwellian euphemisms (simulated drowning, enhanced interrogation) for what is universally understood to be torture, plain and simple torture? Are THOSE the professional journalists to whom the unwashed masses of bloggers must defer, the professional standards that cannot be met unless you’ve shoved a microphone into face of a weeping mother to ask her for a reaction on her child’s death? I vomit in the general directon of the high standards of those journalists.
nwmuse @ 21:
Ahh, it's the famous lime green T-Shirt from Cafepress.com!
Edwin @ 70:
Isn't their something going on right now with internet companies trying to make people pay to use it. It's already started I think?
I think Hazinski has a legitimate point. Anybody with access to a computer and a working internet connection can become a blogger without having any sort of qualifications or being required to meet any sort of standard prerequisites -- and while this is a good thing in some ways, it's a bad thing in others because there's no formal accountability of any kind in most cases and no required ethical standards apart from those the blogger may choose to self-impose (which will vary widely depending upon the amount of ethics and integrity the blogger may or may not possess in general). The professional journalist knows (or at least should) that if he/she lies about having credentials they do not in fact possess or knowingly reports a false or fabricated story, he/she will (or at least should) be fired from their position because there is at least some sort of formal structure of accountability within most legitimate news outlets. However, particularly given the fact that a dismayingly large number of people are inclined to trust whatever they read without questioning it (evidenced by the number of junk e-mails which have been forwarded so many times that they're practically urban legends in their own right) -- and doubly so when it confirms what they themselves want to believe, regardless of whether it's actually true or not -- even a blogger who doesn't do any research and who promotes the most spurious and half-baked ideas can probably manage to maintain a sufficient level of readership provided that he/she doesn't go so far as breaking the law (say, by committing libel) and is clever enough to get the right endorsements. Where Hazinski's argument breaks down is the fact that over the last six years (and quite possibly even longer than that), a great many professional journalists have been shamefully neglecting the ethics of their profession and have themselves not been paying adequate (never mind sufficient) attention to fairness, accuracy, and authenticity in reporting. Had they been doing so, perhaps the interest in blogs wouldn't be nearly as strong today as it is.
"Journalist thinks blogging is dangerous…for whom?"
Only to traitors and war criminals and thieves.
News Source blogging/Citizen Journalism is here to stay and Google will make sure it does. Google needs right content for people searching on its search engines. Blogging is the answer to that producing the most relevant content for Google, in real time.
I'll make Hazinski a deal. I'll give up blogging when he and his cohorts grow a brain and a pair of balls again, and become serious journalists instead of a branch of the White House.
Oh yeah, "they should create standards" of which the do not follow themselves:
http://www.thedeets.com/2007/12/01/blogger-sees-red-over-startribunes-la...
Seems to be that most bloggers actually try to follow a set of journalistic standards that the mainstream media themselves no longer follow (i.e., hat tips, links).
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