Politics Blogs - The Good, the Bad, and Otherwise

As a holdout of traditional journalism, I continue to have a love-hate relationship with blogs, especially those attached to news organizations. In a world where the immediacy of information and a flood of “facts” pouring out over the airwaves and on the Internet threaten to overwhelm us, blogs have two great potentials.

The instant publishing platform allows a journalist – trained professional or basement citizen – to sort through the facts and attempt to make sense of them almost as immediately as those facts appear. That allows us, the public, to turn to a trusted source before we become so saturated with information that we lose our way.

These constant and ongoing updates are a contemporary staple of politics. The presidential campaigns are big targets of these blogs. The blogs allow us to know what just happened and with a little more information than 45 second television news spots. They have great potential to instantly break down events of both macro and micro scales.

Unfortunately, blogs have their vices, and some are potentially dangerous to American journalism. A reporter’s drive to find “events” and information to “package” can lead to certain, underlying stories being overlooked. The demands on bloggers to think about, report on and write up their pieces simultaneously with the generation or release of information means these blogs often scratch only the surface.

The danger lies in the rush that can cause slower-developing issues to be ignored. The rush also means that established sources may get a five-minute phone call to spit out a quote before the reporter moves on, because there is no time to develop the story further. The blogs become commentary, sometimes indistinguishable from editorials.

How, then, should readers feel about blogs attached to major news organizations? What parts are information, what parts are thoughtful observations based on experience, and what parts are individual opinions? How much news can a person really get from a blog?

Some blogs, such as the Fact Checker from washingtonpost.com, put a great deal of time and effort into looking beyond the stories. Those bloggers ought to be commended, and ought to signal to major newspapers that they aren’t doing their job. Stories about fabrications or exaggerations in political campaigns and other public relations are important if news organizations still believe in taking truth to power. They may not be events, and they may not be pre-packaged stories, but newspapers should still cover them for the benefit of the wide audiences they command.

Running this blog is therefore a big step for me. But I believe that such a politically aware student body ought to have an intelligent outlet for its thoughts and a way to share insider stories on the unique experiences it gets to have. The students of American University are an active bunch, both in their thoughts and in their work, which is why they should be heard during a presidential election.