BLOGS: TAMING THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
By: Peggie Brown
TechnoLawyer asked: "Thanks to the 60 Minutes Memogate scandal, blogs (the political ones at least) have finally entered the mainstream. What happens next? Will blogs gain in prominence or will this just be a flash in the pan?"
Don't look now but blogs do have a greater prominence than many news media associations would want you to believe. Many of us have read blogs without even maybe knowing they were a blog. News sites such as Salon, Wired, and investigative sites such as Instant Pundit and The Smoking Gun have been out there for some time and have quite a tidy readership. Many of us go to these types of sites when we want to investigate something we hear on the TV nightly news because we know the main stream media filters our news and adds highly suggestive adjectives to slant news stories.
Blogs have gotten bad press because they threaten the press. While it's certainly true that anyone can slam up a blog and print just about anything they want, discerning readers look deeper than allegations to determine the possible validity of stories posted there. Those blogs that simply shoot off their mouth without back up don't find much of a following over time. Then again, you might just want to read someone's learned opinion (especially if full of humor) and so there is also a place for non-fact finding blogs that express their opinion about the news.
It's sad that there are still a lot of people who do not realize how much their news is filtered and just how the mainstream media slants the news merely by what, when and how they choose to report along with the images they flash while reporting. Perhaps CBS/Rathergate will wake up a few more people. I find it appalling that on an every day basis, the news media is swaying voters under the guise of reporting the news.
"What, if any, implications do these events have for legal blogs?"
Legal professionals and those affected by current legal issues read legal blogs. It's one of the best and fastest ways to learn about recent legal decisions and legislation. Depending on their target audience, many legal bloggers take the time and effort to provide a detailed explanation, yet in a readable format. Unlike the news media which seems to go for the lowest common denominator in their audience and thereby speak/write at an 8th grade level - bloggers seem to trust their audience to be more educated.
The danger in legal blogging is that the lay person may not understand that one writer's "take" on an issue usually is not be definitive and should be considered an opinion rather than the law. Legal writers need to be cognizant of this fact and remind their readers frequently that they are reading opinions.
"Lastly: No litigator would have relied on those memos without authenticating them. What does this say about the practice of law vis-a-vis the practice of journalism? Are lawyers better journalists than professional journalists?"
CBS also didn't rely on those memos without "authenticating" them. They either knew, or certainly had reason to know that the documents were fake. Out of four handwriting and document experts hired by CBS, three have gone on record with the news media that they told CBS the documents were suspicious and could not be authenticated. CBS choose to suddenly go forward on a story that even by their own accounts they had worked on for 5 years. For a story that had been circulating (and turned down by most media) for 5 years, they surely had time to get originals of the documents rather than use a last minute fax from Kinkos. Their source was a known person with connections within the Democratic party -- if that didn't cause some serious doubt about the bias -- nothing would. There was no need to hide the source either, other than if CBS had revealed it, others would have also understood the CBS bias faster.
Could a lawyer do the same thing in a blog? You bet. I suggest there are legal blogs out there right now that are now worthy of reading because their reporting is biased and their facts are suspicious. There seems to be no end to which people will go when it comes to winning. So while blogs are useful tools, they are not the "be all" for ensuring a trustworthy source. Unfortunately, some of this becomes the duty of the reader to question what they read and investigate possible bias.
Peggie Brown
