All Blog Posts from Public Eye

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 Greg Sargent, creator and writer of The Horse's Mouth, a media and politics blog being hosted by The American Prospect's Web site. He's also a contributing editor at New York magazine. Below, Sargent argues that while the mainstream media appreciates the buzz about their stories generated by blogs, it still does not acknowledge their legitimacy as news 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 Greg:


The big news organizations have a major, major problem on their hands right now. The problem is this: The blogosphere is slowly and painstakingly establishing its journalistic legitimacy -- and the news orgs are deeply unsure of how to handle it and are flummoxed over what to do about it.

This conundrum has surfaced with a vengeance in several high-profile journalistic episodes over the past few weeks. A few days ago, for instance, the blog Talking Points Memo reported on an internal email that went out to Associated Press employees lauding a series of stories done by reporter John Solomon. The AP stories, which made news across the country, had said that Senate minority leader Harry Reid attended a boxing match at the invitation of Nevada state officials who apparently were hoping to influence him. The internal AP memo about the stories read: "Dear Staffers: It was the most talked-about, blogged-about political story of the week -- twice ... The story ... won widespread play on the Web fronts and newspaper fronts, and stirred an enormous debate in the blogosphere... ."

But in complimenting the stories for their explosive blogospheric reaction, however, the AP memo writer left out a rather important detail: The overwhelming reaction on the blogs had been relentlessly, ferociously critical. In fact, the same blog that reported on the internal AP email, Talking Points Memo, had clearly shown -- with careful reporting -- that the stories were deeply misleading and unfair to Reid, a charge that was widely echoed on other blogs. You'd think that such a blogospheric reaction wouldn't be something AP brass would be proud of. Yet to AP, the actual substance of what the blogs said didn't matter. All that mattered was that it got widespread publicity on them.

Read full post…