News?

As regular readers may be aware, I watch (and have linked to) The Ridgewood Blog and now its new "arch-rival" Ridgewood Views. Although the latter claims to be a more "civil forum", it actually has merely become a place for disaffected readers of the former to go to bad-mouth the moderator of the original Ridgewood blog. On both blogs, there is a discussion of the value of blogging and whether or not it qualifies as news.

I would like to examine that for a minute. In my humble opinion, I would say that both (as do all blogs) qualify as a "news" outlet. After all, if your next door neighbor leans over the fence and tells you that the neighbor across the street fell off the front porch because she was drunk, and the ambulance had to come and take her to the hospital, that's news. It may not be completely factual. It may be that the reason the woman fell was because she was stung by a bee and missed the step trying to get away, or maybe she was indeed drunk. Either way, she was taken away by ambulance and that is news.

Both versions tell you of the main fact, but the background information (drunk vs. sober) is suspect. You would decide on whether to believe the neighbor's interpretation based on what you know of the reporter's affiliation (how does she feel about the one across the street?) and their past history (does she have a history of exaggeration?). If you don't have this information, then you cannot judge the veracity of the information.

Please understand, ALL news outlets have an agenda!! It is not possible to be human and not report from a certain point of view with certain assumptions. This is the fallacy of the supposition that ABC, NBC, CBS, AP, FoxNews, CNN, and all the rest are unbiased. They cannot be!! This was demonstrated in the recent story on MSNBC showing that a large number of journalists donate to candidates of their choice (mostly to the left). In my opinion, that is their right, they just need to let us know. Quit pretending that they have no bias. Admit to it.

This blog, while I try to bring you new or overlooked information, IS MY OPINION. Make no mistake, I think it, I write it, I edit it, it is mine. You may find things out here, but you will also get my spin and opinion on the information. Now if CNN would make the same admission (as well as the two Ridgewood blogs mentioned earlier), we might be getting somewhere towards an honest press.

Thoughts anyone?