MaxedOutMama
Thursday, September 30, 2004
So You Say
Another excellent and informative post by Ann Althouse, regarding the story that Bush volunteered to fly in Vietnam. I agree with Ann that this is not important to me - but I do find it fascinating that the "everybody knows" truth about strings being pulled in order to get Bush into the Guard and keep him away from Vietnam has turned out to be false.
Every once in a while the national press will cover a story about which I truly know a great deal. Overwhelmingly I have found that the stories are misleading at best. To some extent I had dismissed it as chance, but all the evidence I can collect is adding up to one basic conclusion. The press is lazy and uninformed, relying on an interview with some college professor or a pundit, rather than speaking to people on the ground who know what's actually occurring. They also tend to turn to a very short list of professional resources, which tends to further narrow their perspectives.
This isn't a good thing for our country; we need the press to help us form a consensus about issues. I wonder if the rise of blogging hasn't been generated by the decline of the national press. The real story, after all, isn't that people are blogging. It's that so many people are reading the blogs.
Every once in a while the national press will cover a story about which I truly know a great deal. Overwhelmingly I have found that the stories are misleading at best. To some extent I had dismissed it as chance, but all the evidence I can collect is adding up to one basic conclusion. The press is lazy and uninformed, relying on an interview with some college professor or a pundit, rather than speaking to people on the ground who know what's actually occurring. They also tend to turn to a very short list of professional resources, which tends to further narrow their perspectives.
This isn't a good thing for our country; we need the press to help us form a consensus about issues. I wonder if the rise of blogging hasn't been generated by the decline of the national press. The real story, after all, isn't that people are blogging. It's that so many people are reading the blogs.
