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| Lone Gun in War Reporting -- About Michael Yon |
| 2006-02-09 |
| Lengthy article about Yon and in the LA Times -- EFL Lone Gun in War Reporting Michael Yon's blog made him a hero among backers of the effort in Iraq. As his profile grew, so did debate on the quality of his work. By James Rainey, Times Staff Writer More than one U.S. senator endorsed him. So did retired Lt. Col. Oliver North and platoons of American fighting men and women. Actor Bruce Willis called him the only correspondent "telling the truth about what's happening in the war in Iraq." Michael Yon may not be a household name, but he emerged last year as the reporter of choice for many conservatives and supporters of the war. His blog inspired so much buzz that by last month only 83 other blogs, out of about 26 million on the Internet, received more links from other websites. Yon's emergence from obscurity is emblematic of Internet-age journalism, in which a lone writer with little experience can build a significant following by deeply mining a specialized niche. In the blogosphere, opinions fly with abandon. Unconventional characters thrive who would make the mainstream media blanch. What big newspaper or television network, after all, would have taken a chance on a self-taught war correspondent who once killed a man in a barroom fight, and whose last venture had him pursuing an American cannibal around the globe? Would the mainstream media have kept him on the job after the day he grabbed a soldier's rifle (during an alley fight in Mosul) and fired off several rounds at the enemy? Even Yon, a 41-year-old former Green Beret, can't quite put a name to the job he created. Part journalist, part entrepreneur, part soldier of fortune, he sometimes infuriated his military handlers with his blog (www.michaelyon-online.com), even as it gave American soldiers a robust new voice. Worth the read --snip |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #2 You have to understand the dichotomy that the MSM is trying to foist off on us. Firstly, they have to present real NEWS to us. They have to dig for it, look for it, separate out the wheat from the chaff, write/film it up, and publish/broadcast it. That's an achievement, especially when the news actually matches reality reasonably enough. They get awards for that, and they should. Secondly, they opinionate: these guys are clever, since they got someone else to pay for the megaphone that they are using to broadcast THEIR OPINIONS AND SPIN. It takes TALENT, SKILL, and HARD WORK to do the first. It takes NO TALENT, NO SKILL, and NO HARD WORK, to give one's opinion. ANYONE can give their opinion, publish their spin. No talent whatsoever. Not surprisingly, the guys who give their opinion are paid higher than the ones who write up the facts, and the latter know it, which is why THEY try to slip THEIR opinion into what, obstensibly, are supposed to be factual articles. Here's the thing: The opinion givers know that a paper or news broadcast without facts and stories is NOTHING. NOBODY would buy the NYT or watch CBS if it was all opinion and no news. YOU MAY AS WELL GO TO A BLOG. And this is what the opinion givers are afraid of: their stature comes from them CLIMBING ONTO THE BACKS OF THE FACTUAL WRITERS. Their reputation is not direct, but derivative: Mike wallace doesn't do ANY of the REAL groundwork of the stories at 60 Minutes: when he got into trouble with any of them, we quickly find out he has a lot of gumshoes doing the hard work, and when the story is run, he runs in, shoves the guy out of the way, gets in front of the camera, and HOPES that the reputation of what that guy did rubs off on him, SO THAT HIS OPINION COUNTS FOR SOMETHING. What fakes. When some MSM opinion giver tries to contrast a blogger with the NEWS division of his own organization, he's drawing a facetious comparision: you must compare the opinion giver to the blogger, not the news division to the blogger. When compared to this own news division, the opinion giver would come off just as pathetic. AND HE KNOWS IT. The thing the opinion giver fears is that some other opinion giver frames his opinion in more attractive terms. With the advent of bloggers, the sap has more competition. And since when did liberals like more competition? |
| Posted by: Ptah 2006-02-09 22:40 |
| #1 Titles? Here is a name he deserves (and certain others don't): War Correspondent. How about 'Journalist'. Very few mainstream reporters deserve either title IMHO. Certainly not 'Peter Arnet' certainly not Dan 'fake-but-accurate' Rather. Certainly not 'tet-was-a-disaster' Cronkite. Those are, at most, propaghandist (sp?). |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2006-02-09 19:44 |