5
May
Zero Barrier
I had an interesting micro-debate with @digitalfilipino on twitter yesterday that got me thinking about blogs and their rather sordid relationship with mainstream media. At the heart of the discussion was this article involving writer Luis Teodoro’s comments about how journalists need to set an example for bloggers to follow. Specifically: many bloggers tend to be irresponsible with the way they write about news. Now, naturally this is the kind of statement that would invariably incense the blogging community, although I am of the opinion that Teodoro was mostly correct.
I will bet any amount of cash that upwards of 99% of all bloggers will never double-check any of their facts beyond looking at Google or Wikipedia for some external site to link to (preferably another blog, as there’s a greater chance of a linkback). “99%” sounds pretty close to “many” to me.
But this lack of proper, accurate reportage in the blogosphere is a subset of a much larger condition, i.e., the Internet itself. When people salivate about how the Internet has “lowered the barriers” for everyone, they focus mostly on the good side of said barrier-lowering, which is that people now have (mostly) free access to copious amounts of information. There is a less good side though, in that people are now able to generate copious amounts of information as well. The Internet has lowered the barriers of information exchange to the point where everyone can participate. And when I say “everyone,” I actually mean “anyone.” Even those people whose work should never see the light of day are able to publish themselves online, and the overall level of quality is invariably decreased by the amount of unbridled crap that is generated. Mainstream media, on the other hand, has a much higher barrier to entry (e.g., you have to go to J-school, must be accepted by a large, established organization, must answer to several levels of editorship and an ombudsman, etc.). Because the quality control is more stringent, the product is almost always of a higher-grade.
We talk about this in relation with blogs because they’re an easy target, but generally speaking, everything the web touches experiences this phenomenon of Explosive Crap Growth. Think about web design, for instance, a personal pet peeve of mine. “Web design” as a profession has lost much of its gravitas because it’s so easy to get into. So easy that literally anyone can do it, and, as of this writing, it really does look as if everyone has. Look, I don’t care how many hundred Wordpress skins you’ve designed — if you can’t tell the difference between a DOM element that hasLayout turned off or on, then you’re not a web designer, capische?
But I digress. The point I’m trying to make is this: I do not begrudge anyone their grammatically-challenged, horribly-written detailing-my-last-shampoo-purchase train-wreck-of-a-blog. This is your God-given right as someone who (probably) pays for Internet access. However, we shouldn’t sell it like it’s the cure for cancer either. We need to accept the fact that the Internet - particularly the part of it that’s user-generated - is full of crap. It’s filled to the brim and everyday the container overflows and splashes everyone in the face with crap. And we shouldn’t wonder why people on the other side of the fence look at us and shake their heads, saying, “Wow, look at those people doing backflips into that giant pool of feces.”
But that doesn’t mean we should give up on it either. There are gems in that big pile of shit after all; the question is, how long are you willing to sit there and dig.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:48 am
*nods* Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I sooo agree.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Yup. But on the other side of the coin, this casual-ness of the internet with regard to fact-checking is spilling over to mainstream media. Still not the internet’s fault but I find it sort of pathetic.
Example: I read a column by Fidel Ramos (yes, the ex-president) who cited Wikipedia. I’m sure you’ve seen so many other newspaper and magazine articles citing Wikipedia. Someone who doesn’t completely understand the significance and problems of Wikipedia shows how ignorant they are about the internet and are doing so probably from “peer pressure”. Have journalistic and mass media standards lowered because of the internet/computers? That’s lame thinking.
Journalists who expect better blogging standards have a right to, but that doesn’t mean every blogger out there should clean up their act. But I expect mainstream media to clean up theirs. Exactly because of the differences between their barriers to entry.
May 5th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Yeah I actually think that the academe has the right idea regarding wikipedia (i.e., it doesn’t accept it at all as a valid reference). It’s just too fluid and shifty (and politicized, it turns out) to act as a serious information resource.
May 6th, 2008 at 4:37 am
Forget it man. Bloggers are the shit - they are all the flies.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:27 am
^ LOOK! An ass! It talks! And it bloooooogs…dun dun dun!
*barf*
May 7th, 2008 at 11:37 am
To prevent the conversation from being derailed by a certain self-proclaimed “awesome blogger” ’s very mature comment:
I agree with you, buddy. The internet, indeed, has become much more accessible and has more information in it compared to, let’s say, 1996. But with every growth explosion comes a lot of crap. And I swear, sifting through the crap for great content just grows harder everyday, but when we hit gold, dammit, it is great.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:45 am
^ Yes, but even that gold isn’t the same currency it was. One will have to accept that most of the internet is crap and be better at sifting.
From another point of view, while the internet has shrunk the world and made information more accessible to almost everyone, this decline in “decent” content might just spawn a new talent: The ability to filter the ‘net for non-crap content. It’s one way to evolve, instead of forcing regulation on data, make like neo and see data better.
May 8th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
is that how you spell it? capische? capisce? capish? capiche? catfish?
honestly, my italian trainee doesnt know the correct spelling for that word either. its an italian slang, for Engelbert’s name.
HO CAPITO! HO CAPITO!
May 9th, 2008 at 12:47 am
>The ability to filter the ‘net for non-crap content. It’s one way
> to evolve, instead of forcing regulation on data
To a certain extent, this is what social news and bookmarking sites are trying to accomplish, so I can’t say that there aren’t significant efforts already being made to find the good stuff. Of course, the idea of “good stuff” is really subjective. I’m still not completely convinced that popularity contests like Digg or Del.icio.us are really the right way to go here.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
You wrote a post a while back about how you visited certain blogs written by certain people you have an affinity for. You argued that since you feel comfortable with this person’s views on topics like movies, music, japanese torture porn, etc. you’re much more comfortable picking up their memes that just swallowing the what the rest of the internet feeds you and I agree entirely.
Perhaps the next evolution of sites like digg will allow you to pick and choose which person’s diggs matter to you the most, ala moomai.
Oh and it’s been mentioned already but I’ll jsut say it again. The level of Journalism in this country (and arguably around the world) is really going downhill, so to say that journalists must set an example for bloggers to follow makes me want to throw up a little.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Just another thought. I think the reason why I listen to diggnation and don’t go to digg.com is precisely because the topics covered in digg have been handpicked by people whose tastes I generally respect.
Of course they’re getting drunker and drunker and getting a bit of an ego these days, but yeah.
May 11th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
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