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:: MAX BLACK ::

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." --C.S. Lewis

"The Swiss pocket knife of conservative thought on the web..." - Eli Kardrakian

"Bookmark Max and dump your subscription to the newspaper; if you don't have a birdcage you really don't need it anyway..." - Shirley St. James

:: Monday, May 31, 2004 ::

Bloggers Make Big Difference in Big Journalism

If you haven't been watching, The Online Journalism Review has a recap of some of the more notable instances of micro-media intervention in mainstream news and opinion, including Robert Cox's parody of the New York Times corrections page; a spoof so effective it actually spurred the Times to change it's correction policy:

The old policy was to let columnists make their own corrections. Thanks to Cox's efforts, the editors at the Times now will make the final determination on corrections, which will run at the bottom of future columns -- so that syndicated columns are corrected in all the papers in which they run.

And Cox isn't the only blogger who's made waves recently. Australian blogger Tim Blair unearthed a fabricated quote by Chicago Tribune correspondent Uli Schmetzer, whose career at the paper ended shortly thereafter. And blogger Patrick Frey, aka Patterico, helped counter a series in the Los Angeles Times about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's conflicts of interest with a front-page L.A. Times story on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's own conflict.

But Cox stands alone in that he brought a policy change to The New York Times, at a time when the newspaper is trying to be more receptive to readers' concerns. Cox runs The National Debate blog and Web site, which focuses on political media coverage, including a handy daily newsletter that tells you which pundits are on the various news shows that day.

Mark Glaser's worthwhile OJR essay is a conscise summary of the impact the blogosphere is currently having on contemporary journalism with pithy comments by Jeff Jarvis and of course, the Bolgfather himself Glenn Reynolds. The upshot?--accountablity, something that's been missing from main stream media sources for a very long time.

Patterico, Blair and Cox deserve some kind of Blog trophy for these meaningful contributions to journalism; I suggest the InstaPablacox Award for Excellence in Micro-Media.

RTWT [>]

:: Max 5:43 PM [+] ::
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