Blogging: Not Done By "Real News Hounds"

The Financial Times has moved John Gapper from its Op-Ed page to a fortnightly stint on the "Business Life" page. His first offering there [unfortunately off-line] demonstrates the reasons for his demotion as he attacks blogging with a specious article entitled "The Fallacy that Bloggers have Replaced Real News Hounds."

Gapper expertly sets up a straw man [bloggers search for new "news" to disseminate" and then shreds said scarecrow with arguments slicing and dicing his own false premise. Gapper does a grace note toward bloggers:

The internet has a revolutionary impact on some areas of journalism, most obviously comment and analysis. Anyone can be a columnist now; there is no need to force your way past the old medial gatekeepers.....[enabling] many people with genuine expertise not only to reach an audience but to debate things with others.

Gapper elides past Rupert Murdoch's statement that blogging reduces some of the traditional power of editors.

And he returns to emphasizing the obvious, that most bloggers get their news from AP or Reuters, JUST LIKE MOST OF THE "REAL NEWS HOUNDS" this fellow projects as relentless pursuers of truth. Gapper bashes Arianna Huffington, a target so juicy with appeal that no one can resist, especially since her Dowdification of remarks by George Clooney that this socialite, intellectual-manque was forced to retract.

Gapper doesn't mention the left/hard-left orientation of the majority of major outlets in the USA, as a recent study by UCLA/Missouri demonstrates. He emphasizes the unique niche Gawker Stalker has acquired for sleuthing out the whereabouts of celebrities, giving this site a nice marquee and discloses the fact that the Gawker site is published by a friend and former colleague. By doing so, Gapper inadvertently demonstrates the incestuous inbred nature of the small world of "real news hounds," whose objectivity is doubtful and whose special interests are not always disclosed.