Saturday, March 15, 2008

The Blogosphere is Your Friend

Well, it's good to be back. I really miss my blogging time when I'm away on a business trip. I spent a couple of nights in hotels in points west and actually watched TV for a while. Sadly, it's still the same old same old. Puts one to sleep anyway.

It should be no surprise by now to anyone who reads my blog that I'm a great fan of the website Pajamas Media. Several links today on that site relate to a report that was apparently released earlier this week about Saddam Hussein's links to al Qaeda prior to the outbreak of war in 2003. For some reason this fiction seems to never fade away. No one in the American administration ever, ever claimed that Saddam Hussein had a direct relationship with al Qaeda, but (sigh) the notion persists. Perhaps this report will help to put that myth to rest, but I doubt it. Anyway, Pajama's media, like so many other good blogs, goes where the MSM never cares to go, such as these two:

Saddam Hussein's coalition of the willing.

And this one:

Lots more detail here.

By the way, did you know where the name Pajama's Media came from? About three or four years ago, when the blogosphere was new and just beginning to have an impact, some well established MSM person (I don't remember exactly who it was), being his usual arrogant and narcisistic self, referred to bloggers as just a bunch of lazy people sitting in front of their computers in their pajamas. Recognizing the comment for what it was, the blogosphere latched on to it as a badge of honour. Since then the blogosphere has continued to strut its stuff.

Bloggers from all over the world, writing in English, have broken stories and gotten scoops that the MSM either ignored or, in many cases, created by their own incompetence and, in some cases, even by their own design. And these bits of news travel with the speed of light around the world. Barce Pundit, for example, provided almost instantaneous translations of stories from the Hispanic press. One particularly spectacular news buster from the Barce concerned the translation of a testy exchange between Spanish Prime Minster Zapatero and King Juan Carlos on the one side and the Venezuelan thug, Hugo Chavez, on the other. In a classic display of loyalty to the idea of democracy, Zapatero stood up for his predecessor and ideological rival, Aznar, and basically told Chavez to "F" off.

Bloggers have been responsible for outing factually incorrect and outright ficticious MSM stories where the falsification of documents and doctored photos used by the media became the story, where complete news footage was proven to be wholely manufactured with actors following scripts and where stringers used by the MSM in the Middle East proved to be agents of the so called resistence using the MSM to ply their propaganda.

Although I am certainly no where close to having the stature of some these early blogging pioneers, I consider myself to have been privileged to be among the blogosphere's participants as a commenter on some the biggest and most influential (Iraq the Model and the hilarious Rantings of a Sandmonkey, being two examples), and to have watched this whole phenomena unfold.

The blogosphere has indeed taken over the MSM. Witness the power of Ezra Levant's use of his blog and YouTube. Since posting his AHRC interview on YouTube, Ezra has been interviewed by both American and British media outlets. This would not have happened without the new media. The "masses" have overtaken the "establishment". (Sorry for the leftie speak, but the irony is too beautiful.)

And while we are on that topic, I am hoping this is something that will prove to be a better barometer of Canadian opinion than any of the existing MSM outlets we are currently plagued with: 61% of Canadians surveyed want us to stay the course. This may be bigger than suggested. As the disclaimer says: "This is not scientific and reflects the opinions of only those Internet users who have chosen to participate."

Would the participants of this survey be largely comprised of those internet users who actually watch CTV? Like CBC, CTV is also suffering audience losses to the new media. Perhaps journalism, as we have known it, is peering at its own extinction.

Now, if only hotels would offer free internet with their rooms rather than free television. I've never paid for the movies and as you should know by now, I find television to be a colossal bore, when it isn't outright aggravating. But there are those who cling to their faint hope.

4 Comments:

Blogger Saskboy said...

Internet in hotels I've been to usually is free if you take your own laptop. In Toronto's SkyDome hotel it wasn't free unless you got it in your room. Many in SK have free business centers with computers and printers.

March 16, 2008 1:01 pm  
Blogger Louise said...

Never seen such a thing so far. I've been in hotels where there was one lonely internet computer in the lobby for hotel guests to use. It wasn't meant for folks to sit at for hours on end, though. It was more like a place to sit down and check your email.

In the rooms, there are jacks and whatnot to plug in your laptop, but you have to pay for it just like room service or long distance calls or the stupid grade B movies on the menu.

March 16, 2008 2:30 pm  
Blogger Louise said...

More media bias.

March 16, 2008 3:17 pm  
Blogger Saskboy said...

I've honestly never seen a for-pay in room internet hookup. And I've been in about 7 in recent history around SK and MT, ND, and SD.

March 16, 2008 11:00 pm  

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