Power to the blogs

Bloggers gone wild, eh?

If you frequent this space, you probably read the recent post by Chaves County Republican Dan Foley, the outgoing Minority Whip of the New Mexico House of Representatives, in which he complained about...well, he said a lot of things, but the phase that caught my ear was "journalistic terrorism."

In explaining the term, Foley said he felt some bloggers abandoned fair and balanced journalistic principles to wrongfully accuse people of things they never did.

"This is not only morally and ethically wrong, it borders on the criminal," wrote my fellow NMI commentator. "It is up to the readers to hold them accountable and it's also up to the mainstream media not to give these charlatans any more exposure or credibility than they deserve."

To be fair, Foley also praised some blogs for being well-written and full of useful information.

While I admire Foley for speaking his mind, I must respectfully disagree on one or two points.

While it may be comforting for some to believe that traditional mainstream outlets provide a perfectly balanced, full spectrum of news and opinion, the truth is more complicated.

A recent Media Matters analysis of New Mexico newspapers found that the state's largest newspaper, the Albuquerque Journal, used conservatives columnists 60 percent of the time and progressives 27 percent. Only The Santa Fe New Mexican and the Roswell Daily Record were evenly balanced between conservatives and progressives, according to the study.

And Albuquerque readers lost a significant alternative to the Journal when the Albuquerque Tribune folded late last year. According to the study, which  was conducted while the paper was still publishing, The Trib had an even breakdown of syndicated op-ed columnists, with eight conservative, two centrist and eight progressive writers.

The nationwide analysis, called "Black and White and Re(a)d All Over: The Conservative Advantage in Syndicated Op-Ed Columns," also found that in 38 states, the conservative voice is greater than the progressive voice. In other words, conservative columns reach more readers in total than progressive columns. In only 12 states is the progressive voice greater than the conservative voice, the study said.

You can see what NMI fellow Barb Armijo wrote about the (surprisingly underreported!) report here.

Talk radio in New Mexico isn't much more diverse. As any listener to KKOB-AM 770 knows, the top-rated "news" station offers a menu of conservative commentators all day long.

And so much for journalistic principles: I listened in one day and between the callers and the hosts and I swear I've never endured so much misinformation. I tuned in to Limbaugh's show just in time to hear the bazillionaire host bellow indignantly, "The polar bears are threatening US!" Apparently he feels efforts to conserve those pesky polar bears are threatening his way of life.

So I guess I don't feel like so-called mainstream media outlets have any kind of lock on being fair and balanced.

There's something else I feel like I'm qualified to comment about: The whole blogs vs. "real" journalism debate. It dominated my life for many years while I toiled away as a reporter at the Albuquerque Journal.

I used to buy the journalist party line that no one is looking at blogs -- gee, maybe they'll go away and people will start reading newspapers again if we just ignore them.

Then I tried to buy the line that I shouldn't look at blogs out of some kind of loyalty to my trade. For God's sake, they're written by people who didn't even go to journalism school!

Then I found some smart, independent political, news and pop culture blogs (in addition to inventive blogs from major newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and others) and there was no stopping me. I used blogs to inform and improve my newspaper writing and reporting; to track trends and inspire story ideas.

A few months ago, I got tired of reading about the daily parade of newspaper layoffs and closings and I left my mainstream media job for good. And now I proudly blog for the New Mexico Independent, one of many emerging media/blog hybrids that aims to encourage writing, reporting and comment from people who might not have gone to journalism school but want to provide alternatives to the mainstream news and opinion.

Today, along with a number of New Mexico bloggers, I'm heading to Austin for Netroots Nation, a nationwide gathering of bloggers, opinion leaders and watchdogs who are interested in developing the most effective and engaging ways to maximize and improve the number of voices in the blogosphere.

It's just too bad that Netroots hasn't scheduled a session for "Bloggers Gone Wild" -- because I think I'd actually like to go to that.

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