REPLAY: First published Oct 22, 2010, this small piece, with minor updates, remains apropos.
BC Liberals Keith “Fore!” Baldrey and Bill “That’s an old story” Good, with Mr. “I’ve Seen No Evidence” Palmer, said on Corus Radio that bloggers are anonymous “wingnuts” writing “things they don’t know.”
I might be a wingnut but I’m not anonymous. Nor are Alex Tsakumis, Bob Mackin, Laila Yuile, Bill Tieleman, Ian Reid, Paul Willcocks, Alexandra Morton or numerous other online contributors to British Columbia’s public dialog. The few bloggers I know who publish with pen names (as did Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, Lewis Carroll, George Orwell, Ayn Rand and other notable writers, including Dr. Suess) are not unknowns lurking in shadows. Send them emails and they won’t hide.
The fact is that bad professional writers and broadcasters are being held to account in public for failures. They’ve never dealt with that before and they don’t like the experience. NW’s Brothers Skazochnik suggested that if someone from the blogosphere would provide leads, they might muster up the curiosity to investigate possible wrongdoing.
Well, AGT has done that, Ian Reid has done that, RossK and Bob Mackin as well. I’ve done that and many other citizen journalists are trying to fill the information void that results from a docile, co-opted corporate media.
Send messages to Friday morning’s mistreated media mugs, pointing them to stories they miss. Then, they can start reporting “things they know.”
Categories: Journalism
IN-SIGHTS 
Ha, ha, ha, obviously the see on corruption; hear no corruption; speak no corruption, Friday trio have not read your blog – wing-nut, you are not.
You are right, the blogosphere have weighed their efforts and found them wanting.
Carry on, the truth is there for the picking.
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Thank you for the plug Norman. And I was more than happy to see Jon McComb not only compliment the post on facebook when Bill T. posted it there, but then post it himself on the CKNW facebook page.
I suspect the morning crew will have a look at it, and guess what? I wasn't in my jammies, nor in a basement when I wrote it..lol..
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I am only going to offer the slightest disagreement with you on this one, Norm. The biggest problem with the BGood Boys' dismissal of the blogosphere is that they were overly broad.
It may be an uncomfortable truth for them, but there are fantastic writers working mostly for free and whose works appear only online. To dismiss them as readily as PalmerBaldreyGood do is a mix of ignorance and hubris, in my view. Work such as your own, or Ross' over at the Gazette, for example, needs no defence from me, and I will leave that for that.
Having said all that, there are some truly awful blogs. If someone would just appoint me supreme lama, I would go through the internet and take away the typing privileges of those who have nothing but vitriol, those who repost things that they read – irrespective of the facts – and those who mostly just spout nonsense. I suspect Michael Smyth and Les Leyne would lose their rights in those situations as well.
That there are so many bad blogs is likely a function of the law of large numbers. If newspapers weren't failing by the dozen, we'd probably have more examples of bad paid writers, too.
My perfect world would be one in which people would only write about things they know. That ain't a fault of blogs, though. That's a fault of humanity.
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Tony, a smart, well written comment. And I cannot argue with anything you say.
Of course, we know that blogs are like movies. There are so many and the quality varies from simply awful to rather good and even to outstanding, such as the (non-movie) blog of Robert Ebert.
Just as we pay no attention to bad movies but enjoy the great ones, the hateful nonsense blogs are easy to avoid. The fact they find an audience at all may have much to do with the sense of frustration that people feel when their views have no outlet at all in the traditional media. When a person's voice is unheard, he or she might choose to shout even louder.
I suspect the louder the voice, the likelihood there is that any new people will listen. I'm probably guilty of that too because it is so maddening when the professional journalists choose to be disingenuous.
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Thanks, Norm. You alluded to the point I forgot to make. The reason that there are so many people out there trying to make a point is that those important points ARE NOT being made in the mainstream media. When we don't know the truth, it's human nature to believe whatever is possible, and sometimes that means listening to voices that really aren't worth listening to.
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Norman I appreciate your blog for many reasons, including those you request regarding comments to be on-topic, respectful and courteous. Your subjects are current, factual and important to the citizens of BC because main stream media (MSM) is so blatantly biased or uninterested in searching out the truth.
Many of your fellow bloggers provide information and analysis of events that should be the headlines of MSM. Laila Yuile, Ian Reid, Ross K, Alex Tsakumis, and many others raise very important matters that all Canadian citizens should be informed about.
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One wonders who are the real wing-nuts – those writing blogs or those in the mainstream media?
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People such as Good/ Palmer/ Baldry, by remaining where they are, will eventually make themselves obsolete. This is happening now as we can witness by the degrading comments coming from that corner. Dismissing bloggers makes them feel better and in their minds elevates them to a different level; elevate being the operative word here.
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Can you find us a good cartoonist that can put Good/Palmer/Baldrey in the hear/see/speak no evil pose in place of the monkeys most often used? I can picture it but I can't draw! At least the monkeys have credibility.
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I am sure Gerry Hummel would be more than happy to oblige. Another one that comes to mind would be Trudeau and his Doonesbury which over the last several weeks has been banned in multiple publications in the US.
Anyways here is a link to some great cartoon images of the BC Liberals and other things. This link is from down the street at Rafe Mair’s place. Some great artwork here…..happy scrolling.
http://www.thecanadian.org/cartoons
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Thanks for the plug. I've seen this movie before. Socreds circa 1991. NDP circa 2001. Back then, the big shots were raking the muck and breaking the stories. If they won't do it anymore, we can.
P.S.: Where can I get one of those hats?
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