] I sniped at the NYT's Adam Nagourney last night, but this
] very day he achieves a significant breakthrough,
] pioneering a solution to a problem that has plagued
] American journalism for decades. The dilemma is this:
] What do you do when you have a strong opinion about your
] subject? You can't just say what you think--not within
] the strictures of "objective" reporting, anyway.
]
]
] The traditional response to find someone--an "expert"--to
] spout what you think back to you. Then you can quote this
] expert, citing their expert credentials (while ignoring
] other experts you disagree with).

[ This struck me today, particularly in the context of everyone's new obsession with poliblogs. I think I've said before that one of the main draws that blogs have is that they are subjective -- completely, unabashedly, and by design.

The people who run them and post on them have obvious agendas and far from undermining their utility, it makes it easier to sort through the nonsense. It undermines the notion of absolute "expertise" which, as the above indicates, can be, and is, manipulated by the reporters of "trusted" news sources.

An article on Memestreams a few months back talked about how the lack of implicit credibility or authority on the web will increasingly force people to view almost everything through a lens of skepticism, forcing them to look for corroboration or refutation, on their own.

I could probably say a fair bit about the self-reinforcing that goes on throughout the blogs... there are lots of circular references and cross-citations among blogs of similar bent. But the balance still favors them in my opinion. All in all, I think people will continue to move towards news sources which don't publicly deny their opinions under a pre-supposed veil of objectivity while conveying their very real, and quite legitimate, attitudes through indirect means. If you can't be objective, then just be honest. -k]