Good question and why do I ask it? He recently called us bloggers as, “a crass crowd of brash, disrespectful online journalists attracting millions of readers.” Now my feelings are hurt….that is sarcasm, in case you may have missed it.
He, Kerry, is basically concerned with the state of newspapers in this country. Why, you ask? First he use to deliver a now defunct paper, the Washington Star, but beyond that he is the head of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet (SCSOCTATI).
Kerry recently held hearings for SCSOCTATI and the LA Times has an excellent piece on how the hearings went.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah time we examine the future of journalism in the digital Information Age blah blah and what it means to our Republic and to our democracy.Blah blah blah blah blah newspapers blah entertained us; they enraged us, but always, they have informed us.
Blah blah blah to keep the Boston Globe from closing. Blah blah The New York Times bought the Boston Globe for $1.1 billion in 1993, but the value of all Times stock is less than $800 million now. Blah blah blah whistling past the graveyard blah blah the path that lies ahead for news delivery, and how during a time of great creative destruction within the market for news delivery we might preserve the core societal function that is served by an independent and diverse news media.
Now that was a snooze and a yawn.
Kerry’s disdain for bloggers comes from his presidential bid of five years ago. During his campaign he was attacked by friends and foes alike and he seems to want to blame bloggers for his loss. I did not realize that we had that much power. Cool!
But what he seems to miss is that bloggers are not constrained by corporate BS…..we do not have to fall pray to the sensationalism that invades the MSM…..the starlet nudity, the virus that infected about 15 people a state or extra marital exploits of Washington wannabes. Bloggers are opinion writers, like them or not, agree with them or not, makes no difference, they are at lest honesty in their writings and do not have to watch what they say. MSM is nothing but the purveyor of gossip and sensationalism and misinformation in some cases.
Kerry has said that there are 70,000,000 bloggers…..a bit of a stretch by anyone’s imagination. Bloggers and the internet is killing the daily paper…..yeah right….Aunt Franny’s blog on quliting is the culprit, she is destroying everything the dailys have worked for years. (sarcasm)
Funny that the a/holes in Washington are blaming everybody but the corporations that own the papers. Once they buy a paper they commence to downsize to make it profitable and that is what is killing the dailys…not the bloggers or the internet. Corporations do not care about the reporting part of the paper, their concern is the bottom line.
I am pretty tired of the do nothings in Washington blaming everybody but themselves when things go in the crapper. Bloggers are not to blame and the internet is not to blame. So to Kerry and the like I say “BITE ME” try fixing the blame where blame belongs….corporate greed and mismanagement.
Good post. Kerry seems like an embittered old man who refuses to see the light. He wastes his time and energy railing at bloggers when he should be railing at himself. Perhaps if he had a clearer message to deliver, perhaps if he took the time to understand what blogging is all about, perhaps if he read some good blogs, then would have a better appreciation for bloggers in general.
To suggest that all bloggers are brash and disrespectful is a ridiculous position in this day and age. I mean, many full-time journalists write blogs. Many laid-off journalists write blogs. Many people who have a speciality in a certain area (wine making, auto maintenance, home building, etc.) write blogs.
If Kerry were a better communicator and a more polished polititian, then maybe the bloggers would give him his due. But he’s proven to be a mediocre politician, at least on the national stage, and the blogs and media coverage reflected that when he ran for president.
Ross Fattori
http://www.rossfattori.com
rosswords thanx for the kind words….I agree…bloggers seem to tell the truth most of the time and these old fart politicians blame the internet for everything…they seems never to be able to embrace new stuff….look at the Repubs.
@Terrant…..apparaently we have more power than I realized…damn…we be good!
Graham seems to think that the bloggers are running the show with the democrats.