Does the Tribune have a beef with bloggers?

By Chris Karr in Miscellaneous on Dec 29, 2005 5:25PM

In this morning's Chicago Tribune, the powers-that-be decided to run an opinion column in the Technology section titled "All about bloggers". Since we at Chicagoist are fond of blogs, we decided to give the column a read.

In the piece, Kathleen Parker takes on the bloggers. She doesn't like them - claiming that they are "spoiled" and "undisciplined" - and she's not happy with the bloggers that take on the hallowed Fourth Estate. She suggests that bloggers unfairly take advantage of the original reporting of mainstream media outlets and that bloggers are too quick to pile on mainstream journalists who make an honest mistake or two.

Read the piece and come back to our thoughts on the other side of the fold.

Image credit: MilkWithIce

Since we'd hate to disappoint Ms. Parker's preconceptions of bloggers, here's our version of Gotcha! with her column:

Say what you will about the so-called mainstream media, but no industry agonizes more about how to improve its product, police its own members and better serve its communities. Newspapers are filled with carpal-tunneled wretches, overworked and underpaid, who suffer near-pathological allegiance to getting it right.

If I may be a bit cynical, what is the mainstream media's product? Is it the stories and columns that appear in the daily newspaper, or is it the the readers' attention?

Let's give the newspaper industry the benefit of the doubt for a moment and assume that their product is news. In Ms. Parker's world, newsrooms are staffed with courageous reporters and editors, refining and improving all the news that's fit to print. In the real world, the newspaper industry is in a state of crisis as circulation and readership continues to drop. Whatever the mainstream media is selling, readers are buying less and less. Stockholders pressure management to cut costs, and management responds by cutting newsroom positions. Individual editors and reporters may agonize about improving their new product, but industry's priorities are clear and the top priority is not news or journalism.

Next, Parker takes on the bloggers' reliance on the mainstream media:

Bloggers persist no matter their contributions or quality, though most would have little to occupy their time were the mainstream media to disappear tomorrow. Some bloggers do their own reporting, but most rely on mainstream reporters to do the heavy lifting. Some bloggers also offer superb commentary, but most babble, buzz and blurt like caffeinated adolescents competing for the Ritalin generation's inevitable senior superlative: Most Obsessive-Compulsive.

We'll be the first to admit that this blog relies heavily on local media for fodder for our posts. On the other hand, if the newspaper companies were to disappear tomorrow, we're not so sure that blogs would necessarily follow suit. The fine folks at Gaper's Block would continue to be on top of what goes on in the city, and I'm certain that the CTA tattler would continue finding plenty to write about the El.

As for us at Chicagoist, we're an ornery-enough group (with enough ornery readers who know what's going on) that we'd still be here writing about the city. Unlike the traditional media that Parker lionizes, we have a nice back and forth relationship with our readers. They're quick enough to let us know when we're full of shit when we're commenting on the news - we imagine that they'd be all too eager to let us know what's going on in their respective neighborhoods if the mainstream media types were to disappear tomorrow. If the media wants to disappear tomorrow in order to prove a point, by all means, be our guest. (Though don't let them go anywhere until they teach us how to "blurt". That sounds like fun.)

Parker continues:

Spoiled and undisciplined, they have grabbed the mike and seized the stage, a privilege granted not by years in the trenches, but by virtue of a three-pronged plug and the miracle of WiFi. They play tag team with hyperlinks ("I'll say you're important if you'll say I'm important") and shriek "Gotcha!" when they catch some weary wage earner in a mistake or oversight. Plenty smart but lacking in wisdom, they possess the power of a forum, but neither the maturity nor humility that years of experience impose.

In our opinion, there are two types of demand that we're meeting that the mainstream media industry is neglecting. First, we provide a quick and public way for our readers to respond to what we write. Secondly, we provide the selection and the spin that is of interest to our readers. If you wanted a clone of the Tribune, you would read the Tribune. Somehow, we pick out the right kind of things and add the right kinds of commentary that keep our readers coming back. (There's apparently no accounting for taste.)

As for the "Gotcha!" charge and the hyperlink complaints, all we have to say is that for us (and more importantly) our readers, accuracy matters. Hyperlinking to other content allows us to give our readers a fuller picture of what's going on than ever could be accomplished in a few inches of print. We trust that our readers will follow those links and if we're blowing smoke, they'll loudly let us and the other readers know in the comments. If we fuck up, our readers can let us and the other readers know immediately. It's certainly more of a courtesy than Ms. Parker provides her readers.

Finally, we take issue with Parker's implication that bloggers haven't earned the privilege to report with the likes of her. My first questions to Ms. Parker are these: "You're an expert on what? What have you spent those precious years in the trenches doing?" The simple fact of the matter is that she's spent those precious years writing about what everyone else has been seeing and doing. If I had a nickel for every time a reporter misquoted someone, inaccurately described something, or otherwise goofed something up, I'd be a rich man. Is it really such a bad thing that the primary participants and observers of what goes on in the rest of the world has the same microphone as some random opinion columnist?

Finally, after smearing bloggers in general, Ms. Parker does a bit of preemptive "cover your ass" action:

I mean no disrespect to the many brilliant people out there--professors, lawyers, doctors, philosophers, scientists and other journalists who also happen to blog. Again, they know who they are. But we should beware and resist the rest of the ego-gratifying rabble who contribute only snark, sass and destruction.

Honestly, what's the point of this paragraph? We should all ignore bloggers, except for the brilliant ones? In her world, what is the filter that separates the two groups? Should we now be ignored because we dared to snarkily question Her Royal Highness? We don't know about you, but we're not solely interested in hearing from the doctors and the philosophers and (especially) the lawyers. We think it's great that anyone can signup for a Blogspot account and begin hammering away on the keyboard. Will a lot of it be dreck? Absolutely. Will we give a damn about most of it? Nope. Will there be gems in there? Absolutely. And that's the point. By getting rid of intermediaries like Parker, we have the added burden of deciding what is valuable and what is not. What we gain from that is a more honest and more unfiltered view of what people are saying and doing and thinking than any lifestyle spread or profile piece found in the mainstream media.

Now, in defense of Ms. Parker, should we all be a bit more civil and understanding? Absolutely. There's no good reason to be a dick if some underpaid and overworked reporter or writer makes a mistake. It happens to all of us. On the other hand, should we be so quick give the mainstream media a pass when it screws up? Not at all. The point of journalism is not to placate the egos of opinion columnists and provide welfare for editors and writers. The point is to let the rest of us know what's going on in the rest of the world. And if the mainstream media establishment trips up in that endeavor, it's the public's responsibility to hold it responsible. Bloggers included.