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Coming to grips with the blogosphere

Opinions count in the age of the Web Back in the days when Monica Lewinsky was just another intern and a woman with questionable ties to the president, an angry man with a website did a little investigative journalism into the precise nature of her r

Opinions count in the age of the Web

Back in the days when Monica Lewinsky was just another intern and a woman with questionable ties to the president, an angry man with a website did a little investigative journalism into the precise nature of her relationship with President Bill Clinton. What followed was a witch hunt, followed by lurid impeachment proceedings that may well have changed the face of America for decades. Without Clinton’s impeachment and the Republicans’ pledge to restore the dignity of the White House, Gore might have won a landslide in 1998 and could still be in power today.

Of course Matt Drudge (www.drudgereport.com) isn’t always right. And he sure as hell isn’t balanced in the stories he writes or the links to stories he puts on his site.

But that’s kind of the point of the Web log, or blog as they’ve come to be known.

Blogs and the blogosphere are huge these days, as more and more people turn away from conventional news organizations to a series of websites that probably once originated in someone’s parents’ basement.

There may be close to three million blogs out there, although likely only a few hundred are any good, and maybe a few dozen are actually doing real journalism. The crème de la crème of these blogs are turning news institutions on their ears.

The impact is incredible. When Michael Moore makes a movie, conservative bloggers critical of Moore dissect the facts in those movies one by one. When President Bush makes a speech, liberal bloggers rip each speech apart by comparing the rhetoric to the fact. Some bloggers conduct real investigations, and through research and a little technical savvy have broken some of the biggest stories of the last few years. Some bloggers, like Iraqi Salam Pax, gave the world an on-the-ground account of the Iraq war during the coalition invasion that millions read on a daily basis. Resentful of the U.S., but glad to get rid of Saddam, Pax’s blog entries probably summed up the feelings of most Iraqi’s.

The media, afraid of losing influence or having its expertise or status questioned by a network of armchair reporters, has struck back. Instead of investigating the serious claims made by bloggers, news organizations have instead produced scathing attacks of blogs and blogging technology – their lack of accountability, the biased reporting, the irresponsible use and interpretation of facts.

But for all their bluster, blogs are bigger than ever. Some blogs have proven themselves to be right, time after time, and have criticized the media for not doing its job. If the media still conducted real investigations instead of the "he said/she said" stories that pass for journalism these days, bloggers argue, then blogs wouldn’t be necessary.

As for the charge that bloggers are biased, that’s a non-starter for most blogs and the readers. Of course bloggers have ulterior motives for reporting the stories they do – the difference is that bloggers put their biases out front, loudly proclaiming their beliefs, while mainstream news outlets are still pretending to be objective. And failing.

The most recent blog story was the outing of conservative journalist Jeff Gannon, who bloggers began investigating after he made a series of pointedly partisan questions before the White House Press Corps. The investigation discovered that the reporter’s real name was James D. Guckert, and there is concern how someone got into the White House using an alias, and whether he had a full pass or a daily pass. Furthermore, a little more investigation discovered that Guckert was somehow implicated in a string of gay porn websites, a hypocritical venture considering his public stance on issues like gay marriage.

The investigation now, picked up by Congressional Democrats, will centre on whether Guckert was somehow a paid Republican operative who was planted in press conferences to ask softball questions, and ridicule Democratic opposition.

It’s an incredible story, and it’s the bloggers that broke it.

A blog, if you’ve never seen one, is a specific type of informational website that is based on a set of templates that almost anyone can use, regardless of their technical expertise. Most of these sites are hosted for free by various blog networks in exchange for posting advertising, or for a small monthly fee.

Bloggers frequently connect with one another, sharing material and links to news stories, websites and other online material. In the case of Guckert, the bloggers worked together on the investigation.

Canada has its share of bloggers as well, although they don’t quite have the subject matter of their southern neighbours to work with.

Whatever your news habits, it wouldn’t hurt to add a few blogs to your bookmarks.

For Canadian news, a good place to start would be BlogsCanada at www.blogscanada.ca. Most of the blogs are political, but there are a growing number of blogs in 23 categories.

In the U.S., the sites are heavily partisan one way or another, although the popular Fark.com appears to be equally disdainful of both sides.

DailyKos.com is a liberal leaning site, but one that doesn’t shy away from attacking the Democrats. Check out the links to other blog sites to get an idea how much information is out there. The Great Conversation, as the blog phenomena is being called, is bigger than you can possibly realize.

If you want to stay away from politics, try these blog hubs: BlogWise at www.blogwise.com, Blog Search Engine at www.blogsearchengine.com, and Blog Rankins at www.blogrankings.com.