Peggy Noonan in the OpinionJournal

Via Lileks we read this OpinionJournal piece by Peggy Noonan. It praises the American blogosphere and I say why not? They've certainly been game to get up and at the mainstream media in the past year or so or, more accurately, up and at a number of difficulties some of the American MSM have been having with facts and other issues loosely related to facts. Like lies.

It is my opinion that the MSM and the blogosphere are similar in the truth/lie/spin marketplace in as much as all of it goes on in both. The one difference in this marketplace that I am sure of is that, in the blogosphere, one bloggers truth/lie/spin is material for another bloggers (or many other bloggers) blogging. Indeed, this hunger for sport and the speed of publication is what makes the blogosphere credible, if anything does. Some of that does go on in the MSM but not enough to make a difference. Not enough to drive the MSM forward.

Noonan makes a number of observations which I think deserve repeating (read copy and pasting). Firstly on having a thick skin:

I have seen friends savaged by blogs and winced for them--but, well, too bad. I've been attacked. Too bad. If you can't take it, you shouldn't be thinking aloud for a living.

It's certainly true, but I would go further in as much as I think some newspaper hacks simply shouldn't be thinking out aloud, full stop. Many of them contribute to the intellectual ill-health of the nation and, given that it seems the current voluntary option has failed, we need legislation to prevent their infections from spreading. Many journalists practice sexual perfidy and have taken whores as partners.

Noonan does make a mistake in her article when she says:

Bloggers are certainly not as rough as the splenetic pamphleteers of the 18th and 19th centuries, who amused themselves accusing Thomas Jefferson of sexual perfidy and Andrew Jackson of having married a whore.

However, one can forgive her this as the bloggosphere is simply too big to take in all at once so some characteristics are going to be missed.

Lastly is Noonan's closing paragraph which I hope will never come true. It's too chilling to contemplate:

Finally, someday in America the next big bad thing is going to happen, and lines are going to go down, and darkness is going to descend, and the instant communication we now enjoy is going to be compromised. People in one part of the country are going to wonder how people in another part are doing. Little by little lines are going to come up, and people are going to log on, and they're going to get the best, most comprehensive, and ultimately, just because it's there, most heartening information from . . . some lone blogger out there. And then another. They're going to do some big work down the road.

Posted by John at February 18, 2005 08:03 AM | TrackBack