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A Note to Main Stream Media

If it bothers you to say the word 'blog', try saying 'freelance reporter'. Instead of castigating the web denizens,why not join forces and use them as a resource instead? We are everywhere, and we have a vast capacity to find information, provide analysis, and publish the results back to you in a short time frame. We generally dont care if you take credit for the work as long as we get the gig.

if you are paying a huge set of fees to use the news feeds from AP and Reuters, why not look at the "blogosphere" as just one more "newsfeed" from which to pull information?

Try to remember that Journalism is a methodology, not a job title. Anyone can practice journalism. You don't need a pay code from an employer to practice good reporting. If you're worried about our 'lack of editorial standards', try to be aware that most of us allow comments on our posts and actually like it when our readers correct us, its a good thing to be found wrong and to publish the corrections when you are. I'd rather have rigorous fact checking provided by my readers than assume that my readers are just carbon based self replicating space heaters.

The important thing to remember is not that you might be smarter than your readers but that your readers and you are sharing information on a given subject. I am not smarter than my readers, I just happen to take the time to write it up and post it. I dont make the news, I just "paint what I see". In the world of the blog, Information is rarely owned, its shared, discussed analyzed and the whole process is published. See, we assume that if youre smart enough to get online in the first place, then you are smart enough to think for yourself.

I know it upsets alot of you who got into the business not to write, but to 'change the world', but its ok. Try to go with the flow. It's your only hope to stay relevant.

We are the blog, resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

UPDATE: Nomenclature change: "Main Stream Media" shall now be known as "Ted Baxter Media". "Main Stream" Refers to their audience. "Ted Baxter" is the very defintion of the archetype of the blowdried morons that inhabit too many newsrooms these days.

A Note to Main Stream Media

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