Blog Readers Have Poor Taste in News Sources

Otherwise healthy diet of traditional news ruined by poisonous blogs

Enthusiastic consumers of news on the Web know that there's a big difference between "real news" and opinion, and an even bigger difference between "real news" and blogs. And the difference is this: mainstream news outlets are not to be trusted, at all.

Brigham Young University professor Richard Davis studied people who read both respectable news and common political blogs to try to figure out why they would spend their time mucking around in the parasitical cesspool of blogs. Apparently 30 percent of these fools believe that "blogs are more accurate," while only 8 percent found the traditional media more accurate.

One could argue that blogs provide useful context and perspective on issues that mainstream news sources, by virtue of their holy pledge to objectivity, cannot provide. One could further point out that blogs tend to rely on traditional media for the actual, you know, reporting that they all love to comment on, suggesting that each party provides a valuable function for the other. The bloggers get the facts they need to back up their commentary, while the news sources get wider coverage and tasty links and more attention drawn to the sort of unglamorous but deeply necessary investigative reporting that newspapers are supposed to do.

But all of these arguments and observations would overlook the very important fact that journalists do not read Michelle Malkin nearly enough.

For example, more journalists know about [right-leaning blogger] Michelle Malkin than [left-leaning blog] Talking Points. Yet twice as many journalists actually read Talking Points than read Michelle Malkin.

Hmm. Might this have something to do with the fact that Talking Points Memo has an actual staff of reporters (just like a newspaper!) who investigate things and even occasionally break stories, while Michelle Malkin is a one-woman band just shouting about teabags all the time?

Nope, it's liberal bias!

Fun fact: back around late 2001, blogs suddenly became popular thanks to the rise of a group of writers called "war bloggers," who wrote all sorts of nifty and opinionated things about how we had to make war on everybody after September 11. These blogs were enormously popular until people got tired of the war. Now liberal blogs are popular, possibly because we have a Democratic Congress and White House setting the political agenda. But don't worry, people will get bored of them too, soon enough.

Sara K. Smith writes for NBC and the liberal war blog Wonkette.

Copyright FREEL - NBC Local Media
Contact Us