Outside Voices: La Shawn Barber On The Blogger Army

Each week we invite someone from outside PE to weigh in with their thoughts about CBS News and the media at large. This week we asked La Shawn Barber, a blogger and self-described "renegade supporter of conservative ideals" who has written for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Times, Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other outlets. As always, the opinions expressed and factual assertions made in “Outside Voices” are those of the author, not ours, and we seek a wide variety of voices. Here's La Shawn:

While reading blogger Glenn Reynolds’s new book, "An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government and Other Goliaths," I was disappointed that he made only the briefest mention of the CBS scandal known as “Rathergate.” This event, above all others, is the best example of the power of an emergent “Army of Davids.”

On September 8, 2004, the once-venerable “60 Minutes” ran a segment about President George W. Bush’s Texas Army National Guard service in the early 70s. Dan Rather produced four memos supposedly written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian in 1972 and 1973. These documents purported to show that the president received favorable treatment while in the service. The episode aired toward the end of a contentious election season, and CBS possessed what it thought was ammunition to blow the White House down.

Within hours someone posting on a news filter site called FreeRepublic.com noticed anachronisms in the documents’ typography and font. The memos appeared to have been produced on Microsoft Word software, not a 70s-era typewriter. The next day the blogosphere was buzzing, and we conservative bloggers had come to our own conclusion: the memos were obvious forgeries. But we needed evidence.

Non-journalist bloggers suddenly became journalists overnight, digging up credible information, interviewing handwriting and document experts, and vintage typewriter store owners to determine whether “60 Minutes” passed off forgeries as the real thing. After 12 long days, CBS finally confessed: it had not and could not authenticate the documents.

Reynolds agrees that Rathergate was one of the most famous examples of the power of ordinary people, but says focusing on it misses the point. That bloggers can “fact-check” journalists and self-publish their own stories signals the end of mainstream media’s (MSM) monopoly on what is or isn’t news. Its waning power is much bigger than Rathergate. He’s right.

I tend to dwell on the scandal because it was a joyous thing to behold. A virtual army of ordinary people exposed the deceit of media elites with their personal computers. The affordability of the PC and rapid advances in computing power incited a “desktop revolution,” which has done much more than give bloggers the means to fact-check journalists. With cheap computing, digital cameras and recorders, we have the capability to be journalists. Reynolds writes:

[W]hen “making” media is cheap, and an unlimited supply of people are “making it,” what happens to journalism? Something that journalists may not like: Journalism, right now, is in the process of reverting to its earlier status as an activity, rather than a profession. (Emphasis added)

The 2004 election season also fired up the army. Reynolds contends that “blogs and online media played a major role both in spotting stories that the Big Media had missed and in correcting stories that the Big Media got wrong.” Rathergate came about partly because John Kerry, sensing how popular Bush was and how many Americans supported the war in Iraq, decided to dust off his war memories and run a campaign on a military service he once distained. His quest didn’t go unchallenged. The rise of the Swift Boat Veterans, men who had served with Kerry, was an Internet phenomenon. MSM ignored them; conservative bloggers supported them. The force behind the group was determined to get the story out, whether MSM thought it was worthy or not.

Blogging, at its best, is participatory journalism and a vehicle for democracy. One blogger I interviewed for an article on Rathergate said this:

“[B]y making the news cycle interactive, bloggers had essentially resurrected the front-porch aspect of civil life where folks used to gather to discuss the issues of the day,” Cassandra says. Blogging is “revitalizing democracy.”

For the cost of an Internet connection, anyone can be a reporter. It’s about communicating and influencing, and you don’t need a degree in journalism to do it. Contrary to Klein’s assertion, bloggers are doctors, lawyers, professors, teachers, waiters, stay-at-home mothers, students, etc., and hobbyists of all sorts. Each of us has something unique to contribute to the marketplace.

The blogging revolution is often compared to the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation. With the invention of the printing press, individuals suddenly gained the power to communicate with the masses without interference from the gatekeepers. With the advent of blogging, we’re all potential Martin Luthers in the midst of our own modern-day reformation.

As Reynolds asserts in An Army of Davids, this reformation isn’t the death of MSM. The Reformation didn’t shut down the Roman Catholic Church, but it killed the idea of “unchallenged papal authority.” Blogging has killed MSM’s unchallenged authority. Blogs have shifted the balance, and things will never be the same.