Why Blogs Aren't Replacing Traditional News anytime, soon, now...

[daveon]

Rand Simberg has a post up "Ahmadinejad is no rube"...

Rand is a fairly prolific blogger, which generally means he has to post a lot of links that he, we assume, agrees with, generally with a small amount of comment about how clever the person saying this is.

The thrust of the post, I don't suggest reading it unless you've a strong stomach, is that Obama is destroying the "traditional" relationships that have supported America and will leave no form of international support for the next president in 2013.  Given the actual history of the last 8 years that's a pretty amusing conceit there.  But that's not what my real problem with this is.

Bloggers like to think that the Blogosphere is doing something important for news and generally showing the limp wristed liberal "lame" stream media how to do their jobs.  The problem I have with this is that, at least in Rand's case, this generally involved posting any old crap without thought or consideration.  It also involves posting that crap as fact.

There's no come back, no research, no thought and no follow up.

Let's take the concept that Obama is ruining the "so called" special relationship between Britain and the US.  While there certainly is one, pretty much every incoming president of the last er... dunno, probably 100 years, has had a view on that relationship and how special it was.

GWB tried to distance himself from Blair because he was pissed that Labour had provided more support to Gore.
Clinton was pissed at John Major for the support the Conservatives gave to Bush Senior.
Regan and his team initially didn't have that much interest in a relationship with Margaret Thatcher...
LBJ thought Harold Wilson was a sneaky, underhanded SOB who shouldn't be trusted.

A parliamentary group in the UK warned that the "special relationship" stuff was over rated and was so over used that it devalued whatever relation actually existed.

All of these things are facts.  They might spoil a nice piece of rhetoric that appeals to a certain mindset but you can't pretend they don't exist nor that these things didn't happen.  Live with it.  

If you want to be seen as a credible direction for news media to take, then, for fuck's sake think about what you're posting and what the actual issues are rather than showing the self control of Mr. Toad in the presence of something shiny.

Comments

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

The other question I wanted to ask Rand was "who cares what Ahmadinejad says?" I mean, it's not like he and Bush were particularly kissy-kissy. (Unlike Bush and What's-His-Face the Saudi prince.)

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Rand isn't all that consistent.

I'm sure if you pointed out that he both thinks Ahmadinejad is insane and qualified to pass judgement on anybody he'd say that you had a comprehension problem and were reading things that he hadn't written.

I've had the same issue when he talks about the "vast" market for space tourism.

That there is a market isn't in doubt, but "vast" is a pointless term in the context. The difference between the private development of near space and the need for government funding lies in the difference between "vast", "large" and "niche"...

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Rand is perfectly consistent - whatever he believes is obviously right and if you disagree you're stupid ;-)

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Of course, what he believes isn't necessarily the same week to week :)

[fringefaan.livejournal.com]

And of course the British reassessment of the "special relationship" has nothing to do with the perception that Blair was too loyal to Bush's idiotic foreign adventures, oh no! The complete inability of the American right wing to see that other nations have their own legitimate interests is really amazing. It's all about blind allegiance to them.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

The more I read about this and it reads like the British relationship with the monarch. Elizabeth II is relatively popular, as was Victoria, but they're really exceptions rather than rules.