Truth be known, Weblogs are providing what balance there is, at least on these shores. Event coverage is widespread and is coming in on so many channels that it's hard for even the PR-controlling US military to duck what's actually happening (thanks at least a little to Al-Jazeerah, for all its warts).

At issue is the editing, and synthesis: what is sometimes called 'viewpoint'. You can, in theory, offer unbiased reporting and a viewpoint. You report fairly, but what stories do you choose to report? U.S. media are amazingly unquestioningly buying the Bush administration spin (at least for now: let's hope for a 'quick end' to the mass amnesia of journalistic standards that is currently epidemic, especially among broadcast outlets).

But the analysis of events, wherein things are called what they actually seem to be is largely falling to 'amateur' news operations, at the moment. Blogs don't have the resources to send many reporters (there is at least one, however), much less people who will qualify for Pentagon 'embedding'. But many blogs are unflinchingly honest in interpreting events, perhaps because they are not tied to the economic realities of modern news operations - thinly staffed outfits that value 'access' over standards.

Weblogs describe what seems to be an over-sold, and under-considered political failure as just that. And Weblogs are the only place where the whole premise of this war is still being questioned, 'troops on the ground' and all. BTW, you can sympathize with trusting, patriotic U.S. troops and doubt the leaders whose ill-considered decisions are responsible for those troop's deaths. Remember Vietnam?

Indeed, the only voices raised against this war in the U.S. are the great majority of clergy, and thousands of Webloggers of all stripes. The amazing thing is that so many of the 'bloggers (admittedly, not all) are not just trying to cram a point of view into a given set of facts: rather, they are careful observers, pointing to the obvious. Another unexpected consequence of the Internet: balance...
Comments 8:52:38 PM    

Chris Gulker's view from Silicon Valley - in words and pictures