Bloggers and the Mainstream Media

With the accessibility of a smartphone, tablet or laptop a blogger can upload content in a heartbeat to an unlimited audience. This gives people the chance to give their opinion or dig into something that does not sit well with them.

Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz hammers this in “After Blogs Got Hits, CBS Got a Black Eye.” Minnesota Lawyer Scott Johnson made a blog post saying that documents CBS News used in a “60 Minutes” report on President Bush’s Air National Guard service were false. The post went viral and readers went into citizen journalist mode.

Scott Charles, one of the readers who emailed Johnson attributes the success of bloggers in this case to one thing.

"We've got a huge pool of highly motivated people who go out there and use the tools to find stuff. We've got an army of citizen journalists out there."

Blogs like this one can get information out quickly because they do not have a gatekeeper such as an editor. Without this mistake could come through the cracks. These men and women who post and use these tools may not have a journalism degree but they have the motivation to believe their political beliefs are correct. However, despite this these people can hold the mainstream media accountable for their mistakes because let's face it they make them too.


One thing to watch for on these blogs is the outlandish statements and opinions that are no researched. A reader would have to remind themselves that anyone can put anything up on the internet. For one to believe it there would have to be cold hard evidence such as the President’s Air National Guard documents.

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