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September 13, 2004

Obligatory Seriousness on Rathergate

So that's what everybody was talking about.

I find it rather amazing that so much blather can be actually summed up better in one minute piece on NPR than in 15,000 blogs. Summaries are not what we do well here.

I think it is notable, and perhaps I've said this before, that blogs represent the excess intellectual capacity of our nation. For everyone who is not an editor in a newsroom, yet has the ability to be one, blogs can make real talent that would otherwise remain trapped in 10000 brains. Instead 10000 blogs flower and big media sneezes. But it's not just journalism whose inefficiencies will be exposed, but those of every other industry people will choose to blog about.

This is not really new, but it is the strange relationship between journalism and computer mediated communications that brings it to our attention. Certainly before blogs, online communities performed the same function. We only heard about the Well because so many there were journalists. We only heard about Salon because they dared to call themselves a journal.

Over here, I've been invested in CMC for so long that I honestly haven't watched Dan Rather for 10 minutes straight since he covered the LA Riots.

Aside from all that derivative nonsense is the derivative nonsense which is the material focus of this 'scandal'. Note to self, if it has a -gate, it's not worth your attention. The election season is too long, it's like Christmas ads in September. If you don't know what you want, then you watch more television and pay more attention. The only people that benefit from this length are the political consultants and others who profit from the massive size of campaigns these days. Certainly not thoughtful people who don't need voter registration drives and television news to get a thoughtful political response out of us. No doubt Michael Moore will usher in a new era of spending. You heard it here first, 527s will go from 30 second spots to short films to feature length.

I find it an appalling waste of the heretofore mentioned excess capacity that so many minds are occupied with such minutia. But since so many people spend so much energy and money on such picayune matters, they end up mattering. I'm not one to tell you what an historian might notice but I fail to see how the zillion pages of blogging over this could possibly amount to anything referenceable 20 years from now when one of us bloggers runs for office. I've often wondered what it is that hapless graduate students must put up with when they decide to research and how many of us will ultimately merit the attention of one miserable PhD candidate. Short of that how is anyone to displace professional journalists, warts and all? Rather isn't making a mistake, nobody should be paying this much attention to this amount of trivial detail. We are below the limit of causality here, it's all informational Brownian Motion. We're not seeing the forest for the seedlings.

Posted by mbowen at September 13, 2004 08:24 PM

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Comments

I agree with you, on the lenghth of the election year race,it's waaaaay too long. Now on the subject of Dan Rather,it's just another example of the bullshit people have to endure from the media, in all it's various forms. Rather did make a mistake,he assumed, in all his haughtyness,that he could pull off something so stupid,and desperate,and not be called unto the carpet about it. 20 years from now,no one will care, or barely remember the assinine behavior,of those so eager, to see,our canidate stay, in the white house,or move in

Posted by: Eric at September 14, 2004 02:21 PM

the medium is the message, blogs are not desiged for summaries. The web was designed for details.

Also: your remember personal info option doesn't work. Is it a universal problem or just mozilla ?

Posted by: scott at September 15, 2004 07:27 AM