Soccer Dad

What blogs are good for

Michael Skube wrote All the noise that fits for the LA Times. In it he argues

The disgrace at Walter Reed, true enough, was first mentioned in a blog, but the full scope of that story could not have been undertaken by a blogger or, for that matter, an Op-Ed columnist, whose interest is in expressing an opinion quickly and pungently. Such a story demanded time, thorough fact-checking and verification and, most of all, perseverance. It's not something one does as a hobby.

I certainly understand this. To a point.

Has he ever heard of Michael Yon, Michael Totten or Bill Roggio, for example, who report independently from any traditional news organizations? They look at the news from a perspective that different from that of a traditional reporter. They look at people, processes and ideas that are generally ignored by the MSM. But they've made a commitment that the average blogger has not and cannot.

The average blogger, though, can play a role. That is largely one of a critic. It's true that most of us don't do original reporting. But the MSM strays from its mission of reporting the news and we can serve as a corrective. Whether we can point to aspects of a story that the MSM misses or pointing out when opinion is inappropriately injected into a news story. The problem is that the MSM if often unwilling to acknowledge and correct its mistakes. So it's important there's a corrective out there to help news readers make informed judgments about what they read.

blogging, msm.