For some time there has seemed (and I use the word 'seemed' quite consciously) to be a skewing of power away from blogs, in that someone who makes a stray offending comment might, say, be summarily dismissed from their jobs. In this misperception it is easy to assume that a blog is actually an achilles heel, it's a useful device to sabotage someone you don't like. And we're all aware of those unfortunate names in the Hall Of Fired Bloggers. This sort of thing has happened here and there, with a lot of bloggers tucking their tails between their legs, making silent oaths to behave. When I say a lot, I mean a lockeroom at your average gym. Meanwhile, outside these groups of civilised cyberspecimens, the blog lynchmob has just begun to congregate and flex their muscles. Can you hear them baying for blood? It's a loud, but silent internet sizzle bursting invisibly and across broders to planetwide PC's.
Like money, sex and any other powerful...let's call it 'mechanism', blogging can be used for good or ill. But make no mistake, a megaphone that can broadcast a citizen's manifesto to the far reaches of the planet has astounding power at his or her fingertips. It can be used to turn yourself into a famous scriptwriter (a la Diablo Cody), or it can be harnessed into activism (this blog ventures into that area quite often), or it can simply be a device for mischief. Of course when you're blogging about your poodle's puppy's poofy hairdo, people in Poland aren't going to turn off the 9 'o clock news to care... Actually, even that is changing. But, I digress.
Increasingly it is becoming far more risky to antagonise a blogger and thereby risk a deluge of bad publicity. I suppose one has to weigh up the blogger's salt, if you're going to mess with him or her. So if it's a random once a monther you're talking about, or someone who can't really string too many sentences together, you might as well take a swing. But you've also got to know which communities these netizens are part of. And do they have any support from the big blogospheres like Korea's Daum, and American networks. Chances are, it's a risk either way. There's no knowing who these people are connected to...as Dan Rather's call centre nemesis - Edward Morrissey - can attest. And of course, there is no knowing what they know that you do not.
Showing posts with label Bloggers Can Get You Fired. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bloggers Can Get You Fired. Show all posts
Friday, May 16, 2008
Bloggers Can Get You Fired
Resignation at CNN Shows the Growing Influence of Blogs
With the resignation Friday of a top news executive from CNN, bloggers have laid claim to a prominent media career for the second time in five months.
In September, conservative bloggers exposed flaws in a report by Dan Rather; he subsequently announced that on March 9 he would step down as anchor of the "CBS Evening News." On Friday, after nearly two weeks of intensifying pressure on the Internet, Eason Jordan, the chief news executive at CNN, abruptly resigned after being besieged by the online community. Morever, last week liberal bloggers forced a sketchily credentialed White House reporter to quit his post.
For some bloggers - people who publish the sites known as Web logs - it was a declaration that this was just the beginning. Edward Morrissey, a call center manager who lives near Minneapolis and has written extensively about the Jordan controversy, wrote on his blog, Captain's Quarters (captainsquartersblog.com): "The moral of the story: the media can't just cover up the truth and expect to get away with it - and journalists can't just toss around allegations without substantiation and expect people to believe them anymore."
Mr. Jordan, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in late January, apparently said, according to various witnesses, that he believed the United States military had aimed at journalists and killed 12 of them. There is some uncertainty over his precise language and the forum, which videotaped the conference, has not released the tape. When he quit Friday night, Mr. Jordan said in a statement that, "I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists."
Some of those most familiar with Mr. Jordan's situation emphasized, in interviews over the weekend, that his resignation should not be read solely as a function of the heat that CNN had been receiving on the Internet, where thousands of messages, many of them from conservatives, had been posted.
Nonetheless, within days of his purported statement, many blog sites were swamped with outraged assertions that he was slandering American troops. In an e-mail message yesterday, Mr. Jordan declined to be interviewed.
But while the bloggers are feeling empowered, some in their ranks are openly questioning where they are headed. One was Jeff Jarvis, the head of the Internet arm of Advance Publications, who publishes a blog at buzzmachine.com. Mr. Jarvis said bloggers should keep their real target in mind. "I wish our goal were not taking off heads but digging up truth," he cautioned.
By KATHERINE Q. SEELYE
More.
With the resignation Friday of a top news executive from CNN, bloggers have laid claim to a prominent media career for the second time in five months.
In September, conservative bloggers exposed flaws in a report by Dan Rather; he subsequently announced that on March 9 he would step down as anchor of the "CBS Evening News." On Friday, after nearly two weeks of intensifying pressure on the Internet, Eason Jordan, the chief news executive at CNN, abruptly resigned after being besieged by the online community. Morever, last week liberal bloggers forced a sketchily credentialed White House reporter to quit his post.
For some bloggers - people who publish the sites known as Web logs - it was a declaration that this was just the beginning. Edward Morrissey, a call center manager who lives near Minneapolis and has written extensively about the Jordan controversy, wrote on his blog, Captain's Quarters (captainsquartersblog.com): "The moral of the story: the media can't just cover up the truth and expect to get away with it - and journalists can't just toss around allegations without substantiation and expect people to believe them anymore."
Mr. Jordan, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in late January, apparently said, according to various witnesses, that he believed the United States military had aimed at journalists and killed 12 of them. There is some uncertainty over his precise language and the forum, which videotaped the conference, has not released the tape. When he quit Friday night, Mr. Jordan said in a statement that, "I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists."
Some of those most familiar with Mr. Jordan's situation emphasized, in interviews over the weekend, that his resignation should not be read solely as a function of the heat that CNN had been receiving on the Internet, where thousands of messages, many of them from conservatives, had been posted.
Nonetheless, within days of his purported statement, many blog sites were swamped with outraged assertions that he was slandering American troops. In an e-mail message yesterday, Mr. Jordan declined to be interviewed.
But while the bloggers are feeling empowered, some in their ranks are openly questioning where they are headed. One was Jeff Jarvis, the head of the Internet arm of Advance Publications, who publishes a blog at buzzmachine.com. Mr. Jarvis said bloggers should keep their real target in mind. "I wish our goal were not taking off heads but digging up truth," he cautioned.
By KATHERINE Q. SEELYE
More.
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