Lemann Bitch Slaps Bloggers

~ Laura

Ow. My cheek is hurting. Lemann really lays into bloggers this week in a grossly unfair article in the New Yorker.

Lemann attacks the claims by bloggers, such as Glenn Reynolds, that blogs will replace mainstream media.

Internet journalism, according to those who produce manifestos on its behalf, represents world-historical development—not so much because of the expressive power of the ne medium as because of its accessibility to producers and consumers. That permits it to break the long-standing choke hold on public information and discussion that the traditiona media—usually known, when this argument is made, as “gatekeepers” or “the priesthood”—have supposedly been able to maintain up to now.

It’s completely unfair to generalize the views of Glenn Reynolds to all bloggers. Most of us are pretty smart people who know the limits of the medium. See for example these very sane posts by Jane Galt and Ezra Klein on this topic.

This major error by Lemann shows either ill will or bad research.

Lemann also snuffs off the tone of hyperlocal blogs. He compares them to the writing of church bulletins. Despite their flowery rhetoric or hysteric tones, these local blogs are the only place for real news, as local papers have replaced content with advertisements and birth announcements. My brother is a journalist for a regional paper in New York and he finds the local blogs extremely useful sources of information.

And then, there’s the Reuters scandal. I know it’s Little Green Footballs, but guys, they deserve some props for this. This was a major scoop and an example of what the blogosphere does best. It’s a good fact checker.

Both Dad and Allison sent me links to Jeff Jarvis’s reply to Lemann in the Guardian. More from Jarvis here and here.

Published by Laura

2 thoughts on “Lemann Bitch Slaps Bloggers”

  1. Glenn Reynolds says he never claimed that blogs would replace mainstream media —
    http://instapundit.com/archives/031807.php
    NICK LEMANN PROVES MY POINT: Writing in The New Yorker, he observes:
    “Millions of Americans who were once in awe of the punditocracy now realize that anyone can do this stuff—and that many unknowns can do it better than the lords of the profession,” Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who operates one of the leading blogs, Instapundit, writes, typically, in his new book, “An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government and Other Goliaths.”
    The rhetoric about Internet journalism produced by Reynolds and many others is plausible only because it conflates several distinct categories of material that are widely available online and didn’t use to be.”
    I appreciate the book plug. But, actually, it’s Lemann who’s doing the conflating, taking my comments about punditry and then applying them to hard-news reporting. Lots of other people responded to Lemann while I was away — Rebecca MacKinnon has a response and a big roundup here — so I’ll just note one recent event that suggests that the standards set by alleged professionals aren’t very high.
    That, of course, is Reuters’ use of faked photos from Lebanon, part of a larger trend on the part of allegedly professional and objective Western media to use local stringers who are thoroughly anti-Israel and anti-American and then present the resulting reporting as if it were neutral and factual. And it’s not as if the most recent developments are unusual.
    I agree with this take: “Quite apart from the dismaying ineptitude of missing the clear evidence of manipulation that bloggers will eagerly and easily throw in their faces, we should worry that there is much more subtle and expert use of photoshopping going on all the time.”
    Despite claims to the contrary, I haven’t argued that blogs will replace traditional journalism. But this stuff makes “amateur hour” look pretty good. And if a blogger had perpetrated this kind of a fraud and had it reproduced all over the world, I suspect we’d be hearing much more in the way of tut-tutting from the likes of Lemann.

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  2. yeah… I don’t know about that. Reynolds is pretty much of a blog triumphantalist and he links pretty heavily to others, like Hugh Hewitt, who absolutely say that blogs will take over the MSM. I’ve got his book around here somewhere and can find a quote if need be.
    But it doesn’t really matter, because blog trimuphantalism is stupid and there have been lots of good people like yourself who have written sensible things about the benefits and limits of blogs. (One of the benefits is certainly the on the ground reporting that you’ve been doing in Israel and Lemann does mention that point.)
    The other kind of blog triumphantalism, from the left, is also taking a hit. Check out this article about Kos (hat tip: Instaguy.)

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