Today's Baltimore Sun carries an anti-blogging op-ed by Christopher Hanson,* a journalism professor at the University of Maryland. Calling blogging "no substitute for mainstream journalism, despite its flaws," he writes, "A great many bloggers are either too self-absorbed to focus on keeping the public informed or too skewed by ideology to put factual accuracy front and center."
He calls these ideologues, who apparently have notices on their blogs claiming ownership of objective truth, "I Bloggers" "who owe less to Watergate investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein than to the recently deceased Hunter S. Thompson. His 'gonzo' journalism focused on the writer's precious idiosyncrasies, not on fact digging, and the Blogosphere, too, is a wilderness of self-absorption." (Is it no surprise that Hanson thinks bloggers "lynched" CNN prez Eason Jordan?)
So who, pray tell, is the leader of this Hunter S. Thompson-loving crew of "I Bloggers"? That's right, an "iconoclastic neoconservative 'petite powerhouse'" whose blog is illustrated with "glamour photos."
Doesn't take much to make those Old Media folk quake in their boots, does it?
*To get past the Sun's registration, use the e-mail address
"bugmenot90@mailinator.com" and the password "bugmenot" (both sans quotation marks). E-mail address and password come via BugMeNot.com.
