More On Bowden's Atlantic Story: Power to the People

As I highlighted below, Bowden's central thesis was unclear and too mixed with side arguments and comments. One huge point I drew out amidst the craziness was that blogs mean more "eyes" watching. They mean that there are multiple sources of news, and people who do have the time to explore more in depth and issue or a developing story have a space to publish that information. Bad policies are not as easily passed as they were before and tyrants do not as easily go unchecked. Take the case of the most recent election in Iran. The protests were largely organized via blogs and Twitter. Ahmadinejad can control the sanctioned news outlets but he can only control the blogs as fast as he can shut them down. Blogs mean the furthering of democracy, putting power in the hands of the people as it was originally intended. The primary problem then is how journalism as a profession can survive. Bowden says that we need to couple this with a financial model that works. But, maybe the profession of journalism is fated to end. This does not mean the end of good reporting; it means the beginning of a new kind of media.

How do we police the veracity of claims made by this new media? When students write papers, they don't run to the library so much as scour the Internet. We have adapted to learn which sites to trust and which to ignore. Web sites and blogs are held accountable for what they write by their name. They are not responsible to the people, but if they want to gain followers and national attention and (thus become financially viable) then they have to be accurate. People will comment on fallacies on sites. I would not be surprised if a web site pops up directed exclusively at keeping popular sites in line, reporting on bad reporting.