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Sherrod Incident the Fault of Bloggers - Mostly
Slow food is the response to fast food. It is about taking the time to savor rather than gulp, about celebrating the diversity of local ingredients and cuisines, about preserving traditional standards of excellence and ethical behavior. Perhaps we'd all appreciate a return to slow news, Ruth - traditional standards of excellence and ethical behavior? You can see, in the wake of the warp-speed exposing and retracting, firing and unfiring of Shirley Sherrod, where I'm going with this. See, she thinks the exposing was the whole problem. Blogging is about speed: the early post catches the Google. It is about linking, which may sound like creating a community and encouraging diversity of views but which too often deteriorates into a closed circle of reinforced preconceptions, I'm sorry; are we talking MSM or something else? Once the people in my business spent time checking and rechecking facts and first impressions Except: Shirley Sherrod. The only one of a zillion or more she wishes to discuss at this point. I am being unfair, in part, by singling out the blgosphere. Blogosphere, Ruth, blogosphere. There's fact-checking, then there's spell checking. The Sherrod story originated there, but the sins of Andrew Breitbart were aided and abetted by bloggers' co-conspirators on cable news. And, of course, in the Obama administration. Of course. Perhaps a better phrase would be slow news, which used to sound like a bad thing, back in the lazy days when those senior White House officials could wait until after the evening news to call you back and deliver their spin for the next day's paper. But the Sherrod affair reminds us all that slow, or at least slower, news is often better news. Maybe you need some self-policing? Government policing? UN? Or the slow death of the free market? I read blogs. I write blog posts. I revel in the immediacy of the blogosphere. Sometimes less is more and quicker is better. You may not be able to do much to improve a well-marbled steak than to quickly sear it. Sometimes cooking something for too long turns it into mush. What chef loves a crockpot? But some dishes require care and patience. So does some journalism, whatever form it takes. Slow blogging. Think about it. What for? To make you feel better? I'd rather think about slow news, when getting it right was more important than selling a newspaper. You could sell slow news and let the blogs thrash around in the mud. But you like the mud, don't you. You revel in it! Posted by: Bobby 2010-07-25 |
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