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Editor's note: Phil Mella, who has written for The Wall Street Journal and other newspapers, runs a new political blog, clearcommentary.com. He agreed to answer some written questions by Viewpoints editor Dave Smalley from the perspective of someone newly in the trenches of blogging. He is based in Woodland Park, Colo.
What made you want to start a blog, and when did yours begin? How often do you write?
ot unlike my motivation for publishing in the traditional venue of newspapers, starting a blog has the potential to reach more people. I began my blog in December 2005. If a blog is to be successful, it must keep its readers interested--and, as such, it's vital to write at least twice weekly, although I make every effort to post three times a week.
The "Week in Review," which I just started, is a way to bring a sense of cohesion to the week's events, and to put them into perspective.
What is your favorite part of blogging, and your greatest obstacle?
Regardless of one's approach and content, to be successful in the blogosphere one must be relatively prolific. As such, starting my blog has made me even more disciplined in writing than I have been. The only obstacle, as with so much else in life, is time.
What do you see as the role of blogs in today's world? Do political blogs complement the traditional media, or do you see a time when blogs might replace the traditional media?
Blogs are a natural, if belated, result of the Internet. To indulge a threadbare cliche, they are the quintessentially democratic forum because the entrance fee is nominal--and yet if one has appeal, one's audience is virtually limitless.
In terms of their potential influence on traditional media, blogs fall into three distinct categories:
First are those that seek to provide advance scoops against mainstream media; they are generally more aggressive and timely, and exploit atypical sources, generally gambling in some degree on their authenticity because they are often single-source in nature. There are both conservative and liberal examples, but for reasons that will become clearer later, they tend to be the former.
Second are those that provide timely, if abbreviated, explication of political events, attempting to put an inventive gloss on them while covering a wide variety of topics, from domestic to international issues--that often include somewhat tangential topics that bring a unique identity to the blog.
Third are blogs that are more contemplative and generally more widely sourced. They may be highly partisan, but they are reticent to adduce evidence that seems superficial, oblique, or poorly researched in order to make their points.
From a volume perspective, these blogs are in the minority; my blog falls into this category. Indeed, my blog has more in common with an online commentary magazine than with "traditional" blogs.
In terms of blogs' relationship to traditional or mainstream media, by almost every metric they are quite different in their journalistic pedigree.
There is an immediacy to blogs that is at once a plus and a minus--because their rhetorical and journalistic candor depends upon a readership that understands the nature of this venue, and the need to read more widely to, in effect, handicap their unfiltered nature.
Mainstream or traditional media--for example, when the three networks dominated the airwaves--had a presumptive and unchallenged objectivity that, astute observers knew, belied events in the real world. Yet viewers were obliged to accept the editorial managers' perspective due to a lack of journalistic competition.
Blogs have radically changed that equation--but not entirely for the better because, as noted above, they depend for their collective efficacy on an informed readership that is dedicated to multisourced reading--and to the extent they are, it's a vastly superior paradigm.
If not, blogs may perpetuate ill-informed perspectives. But, given the nature of this venue, there is an inherent balancing of information.
It's always risky to predict the roll of any phenomenon in its infancy, but I would pray that blogs do not replace traditional media--rather, that they act as a check and balance on them.
I receive three daily newspapers and read several more online, because they bring sense of depth, balance, and confidence to my understanding that is vital.
Some people worry about the accountability of bloggers--one famous newsman called them essentially "muckrakers in their pajamas." While the cases of Dan Rather, Jayson Blair, etc. suggest that mainstream journalism is not without its own liabilities, professional media have a series of professional oversight staff--including editors and copy editors--and professional standards for trained reporters, with an overall goal of objectivity.
What's to stop a blog from making wild accusations?
This point is as crucial as it is valid. Its many institutional weaknesses aside, journalists do have mandated structural oversight that brings a level of confidence to their work. That being said, there are numerous instances of bias that are so ingrained and incestuous as to be tantamount to fabrication, as the Rather and Blair cases confirm.
That highlights the necessity of readers to invest time in multisource research, and this brings me to perhaps the most positive byproduct of blogs: To the extent that people are inclined toward an Aristotelian skepticism, and are thereby motivated to vet sources by reference to other sources, our citizenry will be the clear beneficiary.
Although there will always be those who take at face value what they read, in our current electronic milieu they will become a progressive minority.
In your experience, does Dan Rathergate, or other campaign issues exposed initially through blogs, prove any sort of bias in the mainstream press, or was it just timing and a new media tool? Have blogs forced the mainstream media to change in any way?
The cases you note as evidence of bloggers' unique ability to expose issues of profound importance do illustrate an institutional bias in the media. But it's more subtle than typically described. There is no sense of collective or even selective bias, but rather, there is a culture of consensual bias that is at once myopic, unreflective, and tacit.
But because so many people, conservatives in particular, understand and are disturbed by that bias, blogs are a natural remedy, which accounts for the preponderance of conservative blogs.
To wit, journalism schools are magnets for apologists for the proverbially downtrodden, the underdog, the "man-in-the-street," those who believe the marketplace is inherently unfair, and, in particular, those who believe in an expanded role for government, entitlements--and for an overly expansive interpretation of our constitutional rights.
The result is a legion of journalists who, their protestations notwithstanding, have little chance of adequately handicapping their bias in terms of traditional reporting. A reference to any mainstream newspaper would betray that bias, although at times it more nuanced or insidious, and there is rampant evidence of newspapers that editorialize the news.
That's why blogs are serving such a critical role--and why mainstream media outlets have, indeed, changed the way they report the news. From NPR and PBS to NBC, ABC, and CBS, they are all skittish about their historical liberal bias, and Fox News has been a major catalyst in that respect.
Out of fairness to them, it's just they way they've always acted, and it was never questioned, despite the fact that it was so intellectually dishonest.
What blogs do you regularly check out/recommend to others, ones both on the left and right?
On the right are Captain's Quarters, Instapundit, James Lileks, Powerlineblog, and Little Green Footballs. On the left, LeftIndependent, Altara, Agitprop, and The Proponent of Reason. There are hundreds of others, and the search for lucid, well-written work is one of my passions.
