Cobb: The American BBC

February 20, 2005

The American BBC

"Humankind still lives in prehistory everywhere, indeed everything awaits the creation of the world as a genuine one... if human beings have grasped themselves, and what is theirs, without depersonalization and alienation, founded in real democracy, then something comes into being in the world that shines into everyone's childhood and where no one has yet been -- home."
--Ernest Bloch

The big crack is too large to pass over and small ones are appearing all over. Major media are approaching a crisis. Michael Kinsley may be the next casualty, not that I'm quite sure he'd bother to fight back, Check out Slates'

And before I go, I'd like to second Susan Estrich, who has attacked Michael Kinsley on the charges of sexual discrimination, which he feebly attempts to repel. In his long, miserable chauvinist career, Kinsley has done more to block women, their views, and their professional aspirations than any journalist I know. Just ask Dorothy Wickenden, Ann Hulbert, Jamie Baylis, Emily Yoffe, Helen Rogan, Suzanne Lessard, Jodie Allen, Judith Shulevitz, Jodi Kantor, Margaret Carlson, Dahlia Lithwick, Kathleen Kincaid, Lakshmi Gopalkrishnan, June Thomas, and others. They'll fill you in. Send e-mail to pressbox@hotmail.com. (E-mail may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

My speculation about where this might end could have a happy ending in my book, and here's the idea I'd like to percolate. Let's move the American press in the direction of Brian Lamb and have journalists in the major organizations become anonymous voices of restraint. Part of the reason that so much of mainstream punditry is under attack from the blogosphere is because there are far too many columnists who, in the final analysis, are hardly worthy of the level of influence they possess.

Let's take a peak at the group who I think is going to get axed by bloggers. Ironically, you'll find them listed prominently at the site of one of the first iconoclasts of this war: Matt Drudge. From the 3 AM Girls through Harry Knowles down to Bill Zwecker. These opinion-makers are soon to face the question of interactivity. If they don't face audiences with the same bravery and skill as top bloggers, they'll find themselves increasingly marginalized.

But there is a big qualification on this, which is even more significant, and incidently something I've been concerned about for quite some time. There is a question of whether those people who come to replace them will in actuality be subject matter experts or just good writers. All of the Drudge-Era columnists are good writers whom I think could survive a good long time based on common sense and style alone. (Not incidentally why I think Cobb can survive). But at the level of the national spotlight, they'll have to be more than that. This means essentially that academics are going to have to speak out of school. It will be the nuance and insight of experts that will rule the day.

This opinion comes to you from a big fan of CSI. I expect that my love of geeks mirrors that of the public's. We want the straight dope, unadulterated from the source made sensible. We like the Michael Crightons of the world. Such are the demands of literacy in a democratic society, our curiosity will not be ever placated by the pandering of the artful. Sooner or later we need the authentic facts, and time is running out for the Drudge-Era columnists precisely because we now know that we can get to the real experts.

The Blogosphere is bringing us closer to that reality. I regularly consult the blogs of Jack Balkin, Larry Lessig and Dan Drezner and Bruce Schneier. I am not likely to go back to anchormen as authorities.

America wants savants. We'd much rather listen to experts we don't quite understand than people who are as ignorant as we are, but are 'presentable' and 'credible'. Given the choice between hearing Geraldo Rivera talk about science, we'd take Ira Flatow. And given the choice between Ira Flatow and the late Dick Feynman, the man who actually brought physics forward, we'd take Feynman in a heartbeat. My bet says that Feynman's books will ever be more popular, even after his death, than Flatow's, if he's written one.

Part of the appeal of finding these folks in the 'sphere is that each of them have personalities and are interesting in their own right. The facts of news are boring and should be told that way. The people who truly understand and make the news are interesting and should be discovered that way. The current paradigm of broadcast news has perpetrated a cruel inversion in which the storytellers become more interesting than the storymakers. This is what has allowed them to make non-stories into news. This is what has allowed them to make such media creatures as 'The Trial of the Century' or elevate the tribulations of Chandra Levy to national proportions. This is what has to stop.

If internet technologies motivate large groups of people to form such arenas as the blogosphere going forward, the opportunity for media conglomerates to take advantage will decrease over time. We will find home.

Posted by mbowen at February 20, 2005 09:57 AM

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� Cobb on The American BBC from Booker Rising
The moderate-conservative Republican blogger argues that part of the reason that so much of mainstream punditry is under attack from the blogosphere is because there are far too many columnists who ain't worthy of the level of influence that they pos... [Read More]

Tracked on February 22, 2005 12:23 PM