Blog Triumphalism

It would seem that the bloggers have "forced" the Mainstream Media (or MSM, as the 'net-savvy would have it) to deal with the Swift-Boat issue. Such has been the running story for a week or more, and John Podhoretz encapsulates it in the New York Post today. He closes with expected grandeur, saying that "They (the "old" media) are worried the bell is beginning to toll for them, and they're right."


DUNH DUNH DUNNNNNNNNNNNNH!


Folks, don't you believe it. While getting the Swifties on TV and in newspapers was undoubtedley a triumph for the blogosphere, as was the bringing down of Trent Lott two years ago (with no help from this space, let the record show), it's a bit much to claim that we are somehow the "new" media.


The unspoken truth is that "we" really couldn't exist without "them." Take a look at Instapundit's postings on any given day. He links as much to articles from the "old" as the "new". More to the point, without press services and pro journalists on the ground handing in the facts, "we" would quickly run out of the raw material needed to fill our space. Let's not forget that this whole Swiftie story came from a TV ad.


As I mentioned some time ago, the purpose of the blogosphere is not to supplant, but to enhance and improve. We're no more going to get rid of newspapers than we are books. Our job, as independent content-promoters and commentators, is to watch the watchdogs, to question their motives, slam their tactics, force them to be what they claim they are: ideologically objective transmitters of important fact. In the blogosphere, we don't make the news, we make the news better.