The greatest opportunity of the blogosphere (according to an army of self-proclaimed, twenty-something pundits) is its democratization of front-line journalism. Anybody with a phone cam and some server space can, by virtue of being there first, break the next big story. For me, this would be a point of indifference were it not for the fact that such claims are typically followed by an underhanded: ” … and this is infinitely more useful than those blogs that ponder the meaning of a column in last week’s issue of Time.” I read such a comment not long ago in Wired and realized that the writer was using people like me for a negative comparison.
I resent being told how little utility there is in what I do. What do I do exactly? I think it’s akin to the editorial, the reflective commentary, criticism of one sort or another. Unequivocally, it is not about being the first to report an event. I’m rarely the first to anything. Here, I am moved to do more than simply express my resentment; I think the pundits are wrong.
Our economy is structured to reward the first. For example, patents give inventors a time-limited monopoly for their inventions. In the case of pharmaceutical companies, being first to patent a medication creates the opportunity to earn billions of dollars. Photographers who are first to snap celebrities in compromising circumstances often command huge fees. And the threat of jail terms does not deter the Martha Stewarts of the world from taking advantage of information obtained before its disclosure to the general investing public. On the consumer side of economic transactions, the desire to be first seems equally compelling. Gamers lined up for days in advance of Halo’s retail release. Within days (sometimes hours) of a new fashion line on a Paris runway, knock-offs find their way to the racks of discount stores in middle America. And many of us happily pay a premium for electronics, knowing full well that they will cost far less in a few months, simply for the pleasure of telling our friends that we had it first.
But economic incentives are not the only motivation for being there first. As social beings, we crave priority. Our conversations seem zestier if we talk knowingly about the movie just released yesterday, or hum music from a CD before it gets play time on the radio, or discuss a book—oh, but who am I kidding? Nobody reads anymore, do they? As sexual beings, we crave priority. Or at least men do. For all our sophistication and analytical detachment, I don’t think much has changed for us as sexual beings in the last 100,000 years.
And yet, I am not so cynical that I accept the human species as irretrievably lost in the urgent demands of immediate gratification. We exhibit a countervailing craving for the considered and reflective. And this, I believe, is really where the blogosphere excels. Yes, the internet facilitates instantaneous communication, but as a medium of communication, this is not what it does best. As a medium of communication, instantaneous or otherwise, the internet is merely a foundation supporting higher forms of discourse, higher points of view. Let me explain …
The internet, in its varied appearances (e.g. html pages, flash animation, msn chat rooms, email, ftp, telnet, blogs, etc., etc.) is emphatically not like an academic journal, not even like a reputable newspaper. Those who publish their work in academic journals must first submit it to the scrutiny of peers to ensure its accuracy and integrity; and those who write for newspapers are subject to a house style and to often ruthless editors. The internet offers no such checks and balances. That isn’t to say a reputable newspaper can’t use a domain (most do) to promote an online presence which mirrors its newsprint presence both in content and integrity. But few people can send their work to, say, the New York Times, and expect to see it in print on the following morning. On the other hand, millions of people daily “publish” their work to online outlets without any independent fact-checking nor any editorial scrutiny. To offer an example, I can say with reasonable certainty (perhaps the only thing I can claim with certainty) that there are few factual claims on my own web site on which anyone can, or should, rely. Factual reliability is the blogosphere’s greatest weakness. What is the point, then, in being there first if no one can believe you?
It is in the reflective, editorial process that the blogosphere excels. The point of reflection is to stand at one remove from the front line of journalism and attempt to assemble its facts into a matrix of intelligibility. The point of reflection is to seek out meaning within a collection of seemingly chaotic events. And there is something social in the process which moves our ponderings to an apprehension of meaning. Whoever grieved well alone? When we try to understand a tragic event, inevitably we weep with our friends, we turn to them for comfort, and then, when we are ready, we talk … and we talk and we talk. Whoever learned anything of importance in isolation? When we try to learn new skills or modes of thought, inevitably we seek out teachers, and we try our new vocabularies by talking with our peers. We talk … and we talk and we talk. It is in facilitating the talking that the blogosphere excels. And that talking follows from reflection, from our earnest efforts to make sense of things. And where there are a handful of editorials and letters to the editor each day in the newspapers, there are millions of such reflections posted online. The sheer number is daunting—but reassuring, too, for it tells us that the world is full of people who are thoughtful and who crave meaning.