Editorial, Opinion

STAFF EDIT: Easy readers

In this wired age, the term ‘citizen journalist’ has taken a media foothold more than ever as opinionated onlookers are no longer limited to paltry letters to the editor thanks to online outlets such as blogs and Twitter. Free blog hosts like WordPress and Blogger make it easier than ever for just anyone to write about just anything and have it published on the public stage, and this influx of self-journaling comes at an ironic time as esteem for actual newspapers dwindles to an unprecedented low. Experts blame the public’s belief that newspapers no longer qualify as credible sources of information ‘- but if that’s the case, why are blogs so revered, when they are not subjected to the same rigorous editing and fact checking protocol as are all notable newspapers?

It could be that blogs don’t pretend to be credible ‘- and in this time when irony reigns supreme over such ignorable tenets as quality and ethics, blogs with their sparkling HTML layouts and abilities to embed sound and moving pictures could easily be placed as the newspaper’s foil. With blogs, there’s no pretense, so long as one doesn’t consider a blog consisting purely of posts about the author’s favorite Pitchfork picks pretentious. In the blogosphere, a kitten-in-sinks blog is a kitten-in-sinks blog. A food criticism blog written by an over-privileged New York University student about the intricacies of finding a suitable truffle cream cheese spread for her Melba toasts within a reasonable radius of campus is just that ‘- not to be muddled by distractions such as credible sources and a code of ethics. And everyone’s fashion blog with everyone’s self-timed pictures of everyone’s favorite new pair of skinny jeans should be a top hit over all that heavy stuff about Iraq or whatever.

That’s the case with news ‘- and has been for a long time. Fun papers with colors and blurbs like The Metro always took precedent over boring black-and-white tomes like The Wall Street Journal. And now, blogs are the newest competitors to take the spotlight, following the trend of limiting hard (or any) news and increasing visual and human-interest appeal. They ‘- with their incomparable grassroots coverage of Brooklyn punk shows and organic food festivals and what so-and-so-from-some-random-dorm-room-at-Boston University thinks about the public health care option ‘- are the future of news, and deserve to be. They’re easily accessible by iPhones and easily copied-and-pasted from other blogs, altogether creating a giant web of useless, self-indulgent information that connects everyone around one communal hub, which is probably PerezHilton.com. This fact renders newspapers nothing more than greasy burdens, non-clickable anachronisms looming with boring original reporting and verified fact. Citizen journalists and passersby alike should all thank God ‘- or Joseph Pulitzer ‘- for blogs, without which the public might have no viable platform upon which to vomit forth Comic Sans-commentary about marijuana legislation. None of it credible, none of it claiming to be.

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