Rather a scandal

When CBS News ran a story on 60 Minutes II that accused George W. Bush of sailing through his service with the Texas Air National Guard on Sept. 8, 2004--an accusation that was based on four memos, the authenticity of which could not be confirmed--blogs around the country scooped up the story as an example of reckless journalism. The ensuing scandal, called "Rathergate" and "Memogate," led to what some have seen as a sea change in the face of American media. Individuals, who often came from very partisan backgrounds and had shiny, biased details in their biographies like a history of donating to Republican campaigns or of working as a Republican laywer, were calling the reporting by main stream media partisan, while continuing to flood their own less-than-objective blogs with shaky evidence as to how CBS's reporting had been based on false evidence.

As a news consumer, the blog response to the CBS story reads to me like a megaphone at the mouth of a biased commentator snatching a glimpses of evidence, as in the situation with David Hailey's assessment of the CBS memos. I appreciate the effort to call a media source out on missing facts, but it doesn't look like the blogs, at least in this case, did much more than take over the media by mob rule. And mobs, with their penchant for storming monster strongholds armed with pitchforks and torches, are not exactly sources for balanced and reasonable arguments.

As a journalism student, I'm both terrified by and appreciative of the bloggers patrolling the media with this ferocious devotion to truth.

What terrifies me is that it's clear that in some ways, blogs function like gossip circles, and once a rumor gets picked up it can work it's way through the entire blogosphere and come back on to main stream media before that main stream media has a chance to do the research necessary to either support their sources or issue a definite withdrawal of the information. And bloggers aren't held to the same code of ethics as journalists, which means they're not required by anything other than personal ethics to look at a statement like Joseph Newcomer's declaration that because he could use Microsoft Word to recreate the memo, that meant that memo at hand must be a fake. That argument rings about as effectively for me as stating that because people have created replica's of the Mona Lisa, da Vinci can't have painted the first.

However, I appreciate knowing that there are people out there willing to question and challenge the reporting in the media. The incidence of plagiarism and pure invention in the press, perhaps best exemplified by the Jayson Blair fiaso at the New York Times can be pulled into check by media watchdog groups. Provided those groups also stick to fact-based critiques.

As a voter, I feel myself drawn more to voting based on what I can verify for myself, rather than counting on either a blog or a main stream media source to provide me with solid facts. Yes, I'll read those stories, of course, but

And that, in turn, makes me question the practicality of my own efforts as a journalist. I want to report on politics, which means I'd be thrown into this fray to report on stories that I know I, as a consumer, would read with a degree of skepticism.

That's ready fodder for an existential crisis.

But set the breakdown aside, and pour in an optimistic angle, and I'll say this-- any journalist reporting on politics has to understand that as much as that journalist is a watchdog on the government, there will also be watchdogs on the journalist. And perhaps that barking and yapping will be as universally condemning as a junk yard dog who catches you between him and his food dish. But it also means you're held to a standard of accountability, and you know that someone out there is tracking what you do, even if just to catch when you might be wrong.