Blogs 4 Brownback Encourages Suicide

When I logged into WordPress.com I saw that Blogs 4 Brownback was mentioned in the “hawt” post with a post entitled Anime Encourages Murder. I started reading it and suddenly was overcome by extreme pain causing an intense desire to put a gun to my head and pull the trigger. Fortunately, I hit the back button on my browser and everything was okay. Phew, that was a close call.

Uncomfortable

Its been strange these last few days. So far I haven’t worked on a blog that anyone has read, or at least bothered commenting on. This is the first, and it has made me feel a bit self-conscious. I actually have to deal with the fact that people are reading what I have written. Not that what you read here is of any real importance, but it makes me want to edit a bit more, and take a little more care in what I write, though it seems a bit contrary to my purpose. I guess I’ll have to live with my uneasy feelings in order to keep going. I’m sure this is nothing new to most blog writers, but it is new to me. Writing when you are sure no one is reading is a freeing thought. Actually being read almost necessitates a feeling of responsibility.

The Trouble with Blogs…revisited

I don’t know. Perhaps I was a bit judgmental with the last post. I don’t want to be one of those pointing finger types. I want my blog to be open-minded and provide constructive criticism rather than say you’re wrong, you’re all wrong. To that end, I must ask why we trust these blogs. Is there something inherent in popularity that makes you more trustworthy?

I don’t know any of these bloggers personally, and I don’t know what qualifications they possess. Should I put my ‘faith’ in these people that what they are telling me is the truth or should I be a bit skeptical as to their loyalties and their agendas? Personally, I choose the latter. I’d rather trust my own judgments than depend on others to give me pertinent information without proper investigation. I still look to the traditional media for most of my information. I trust that I can, at least, filter much of the speculation from the facts. And there is speculation mixed in always, as well as hyperbole. I mean we are dealing with large corporations here. There is a lot of money at stake. But don’t think there isn’t this type of concern in the blogosphere. Many of these bloggers earn a living from their work. I think there has already been cases where bloggers have been, at the very least, influenced by political organizations.

The bottom-line is that no particular institution can be fully trusted 100% of the time. A careful watch needs to be kept on all those claiming to have the facts. And indeed, there are watch-dog groups, even in the realm of the blogosphere. And that is, of course, a good thing.

The Trouble with Blogs…

You may find this surprising, but I am not a big fan of blogs. I have read a few on occasion, and even liked one or two, but I do not make it a regular thing. Of the blog subjects, politics is the least enjoyable. Political blogs seem to be of two types. One being ‘my side is better than your side’ and the other being ‘your side is stupid’. Neither type seems to be concerned with the whys and hows of issues, but rather the whos and whats. So political blogs bore the hell out of me. They rant on and on about this or that and never answer any real questions.

Fortunately for the bloggers, no one seems to want any real answers. And if you fail to answer anything well enough, you get a lot of traffic to your blog and the potential to make some good money. (I don’t think I have to worry about any of this myself.)

Stephen Colbert recently interviewed Andrew Keen who authored a book about the Internet destroying life as we know it. He discusses how bloggers are allowed to take the place of true journalism with the full acceptance of Internet users. This is not surprising is it?

A lot of money has been spent discrediting the media, especially in the USA. Conservatives hail blogging as the only true source of news and information (while they criticize blogs by Liberals, go figure). While I’m sure that true journalists are showing a little sour grapes in their response to blogging, they do have a point. Bloggers may have little training and do not have to be concerned about getting the facts correct. Journalism on the other hand has to worry about these things or face possible lawsuits. This separates blogging into the realm of true opinion and not journalism, but few readers concern themselves with the difference. The more money becomes a factor in blogging the more weary we should become as to the credibility of the blog we are reading.

The responsibility is with the readers. Any idiot can start a blog and voice their opinions (look at yours truly) , but the reader needs to be smart enough to understand whether the view he reads has any real value.

Let the reader beware. (This would sound cooler if it was in Latin.)