| March 3, 2005 | Are Blogs to Blame? |
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Tom Regan, who I met last month at Poynter, posted to his Christian Science Monitor blog called My American Experience a piece positing that Americans' news and information consumption is today largely made up of opinion pieces rather than actual reporting and that this has a very dangerous impact on public opinion. He points to a Harris Interactive Poll showing that 64% of Americans *still* think that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al-Qaida. While I agree that Americans are consuming more opinion-influenced "news," and I do agree that blogs contribute to this somewhat -- I think that more of the blame in this case needs to be given to FOX News and conservative radio commentators. I just don't believe that any bloggers (right-wing or left-wing) have this huge of an influence on the opinion of the average American yet. For instance, is there any one blogger with readership over 1 million yet? (All the most influential newspapers in the U.S. have online readerships over 2 million). I would bet that the average American still does not read blogs regularly to get their news. Anyone agree/disagree? Add your comments at the end of Tom's post. Last week I did also see an Op/Ed piece that editorial cartoonist Ted Rall wrote on "Bloggers and the New McCarthyism". Rall also focused on the danger of these right-wing blogs. It was interesting to me that Rall pretty much ignored that there are any non-right-wing blogs out there. Am I underestimating the "threat" of right-wing blogs? Labels: blog, blogger, journalism, journalists, news, newspapers posted by Jess Barron @ 11:44 AM 
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