Scoble’s Link Blog

When it comes to the hype and euphoria over blogging’s potential, there is a part of me that remains a bit skeptical. Although Robert Scoble’s recent visit to campus was provocative in many ways, I am now a little more rational about the prospects. Blogging, as evidenced by recent revelations concerning the CBS “Memogate” episode or CNN executive Eason Jordan’s resignation, may seem like playing poker with the cards turned face up, but there is a darker side to the silver lining. To see more about this check out Jay Rosen’s Press Think, which offers a good perspective on the debate concern blogging vs. journalism.

The problem, if it is a problem, with blogging as a form of journalism, is that it may be decentralizing the fact-finding and fact-checking processes that come with solid reporting (Jayson Blair being the exception of course).

The speed and abandon in which information now spins through the world through blogging, dare I say without the eyes and common sense of a good editor, is a little like trying to read a book in a sandstorm. At the same time, with the ever-increasing corporatization, downsizing and monopolization of the news industry by Big Business blogging may be exactly what we need right now. In fact, I think Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream should name a flavor after this phenom. Give me a scoop of that “Bloggerbuzz” flavor over there. Put it on a waffle cone. Bloggerbuzz is made with 40 shots of espresso and two tons of sugar.

Similar to the potential digital shutterbugs have in circumventing conventional news channels like in the case of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, blogging runs the risk of outsourcing journalistic credibility to the unverifiable rumor mills of cyberspace. There is a reason why we have editors. I have never been especially fond of editors as a species but they do serve an important function in the food chain of information gathering. At the same time, bloggers, and the speed in which information can posted and repeatedly re-posted is a sort of editing in and of itself. Blogging, as the new bloodsport for the information age, has the amazing feature of instant feedbacks and trackbacks built into it. This is a feature that conventional news sources like radio, television and print journalism do not have. The ability to instantly comment, correct, sully or verify information on a blog across time-zones 24/7 may be blogging’s saving grace. Duncan Riley’s “Old media hypocrisy in the war on blogging” seems to have a good take on all of this.