“The tail is beginning to wag the blog,” says Lev Grossman in his TIME Magazine article, Meet Joe Blog (Jun. 21, 2004). “Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they’re fast, funny and totally biased.”
The article covers everything from the Drudge Report to Slashdot to Baghdad blogger Salam Pax. Wonkette and Gawker are covered extensively, of course, because mass media cannot mention the word blog without Nick Denton.
This could be a problem for the blogosphere as a whole.
In traditional journalism there is a long-held belief that behind every story, every even, every popular movement, is a single person. Readers can’t identify with a concept without a human face, without a poster boy (or girl), journalists believe. Denton has become the poster boy for blogging. It doesn’t matter that Denton is a relatively late arrival to the blogosphere; when Big Media writes about Citizen Media (as I call blogging), Denton is the face plastered onto blogging, blogs, and Joe Blogger.
Why Denton? Easy: First, he’s doing well at the business of blogging (Good for you, Nick!). Second, he’s smart enough to find and exploit talent like Anne Marie Cox of Wonkette. Last, and certainly not least, he’s well connected in Big Media–friends at the New York Times (and other outlets) make reading Gawker.com and NYT side-by-side look like a quid pro quo blowjob brotherhood. One quotes the other, then the first quotes the quoting.
I’m glad Denton is doing well–I really am. Some of what he’s doing is good for the blogosphere and the whole activity of blogging. For one, he’s helping to raise the awareness of blogging and the collective voice of Citizen Media. By embracing Big Media’s predaliction to stick somebody’s face on everything, Denton is allowing Big Media to promote the hell out of him, and thereby promoting blogs as a news form. Thus Big Media gets to write stories within its comfort zone that give John Q. Public a headsup that blogs exist, that they are, at worst, a companion to Big Media, and at best a replacement for many facets of Big Media, and, most importantly, that blogs have a value to John Q. Public. John is then going to read blogs, and, maybe, start one himself, thus increasing the power and influence of Citizen Media.
Big Media, while afraid of Citizen Media’s potential to carve large chunks out of painstakingly built media empires, is also helping to build the public voice of Citizen Media. It’s a peculiar dicotemy. Despite the threat blogs pose to Big Media’s profits and power, Big Media can no longer ignore something as newsworthy and influential as the blogosphere. Blogs are inciting political change. Blogs have power. Blogs have the same kind of power Big Media has, but with one all important exception: Citizen Media isn’t controlled by those with money, influence, and political connections. Citizen Media isn’t moderated or censored, and Citizen Journalists don’t work for anyone with the power to kill a story or downplay an event. If, for one reason or another, one blogger is unable or unwilling to write about something, the same story will be covered by the next blogger. Big Media can be–and occassionally is–censored for political convenience or profit; Citizen Media, by its very definition, can never be censored. That makes Citizen Media annoying to Big Media. When the public reads uncensored, unbiased Citizen Media and changes its opinion as a result, Citizen Media becomes dangerous to Big Media, the historical and jealous holder of public opinion-swaying power.
Electing Nick Denton as the poster boy for blogging could prove to be an Achilles heel for the blogosphere and Citizen Media in general. It has nothing to do with Denton himself or his projects; Denton is as good a poster boy as any. Rather the danger lies in the election of any individual to represent such a large, diverse, and politically powerful group as bloggers. Denton is human. Like the rest of us, Denton has human flaws and a history. If something scandelous comes out about Denton–and bloggers will make sure whatever it is creates headlines around the blogosphere–it could tarnish Citizen Media as a whole. If Big Media digs deep enough into Denton, something scandalous, from his past or something yet to occur, will surface. The same can be said of any of us. (I certainly don’t want the world knowing what happened that October evening in the FSC Phi Mu sorority house… Nevermind.) Depending on what is discovered about our poster boy, it can be spun in such a way as to injure blogging and Citizen Media.
What could do that? Well, it wouldn’t be sex: Denton’s an Internet geek, so a sex scandal would likely only increase his ‘Net cred. I can see the Slashdot headline now: “Internet Geek Gets Laid! IN THE FLESH! Other Net Geeks Assemble In IRC To Pray For Their Chance!”
So, if not sex, what could be so devastating as to make John Q. Public distrust Citizen Media? How about biasing the unbiasable? The public distrusts Big Media right now because Big Media has proven itself to be anything but the impartial observer. Can you trust CNN to fairly report on its owner, AOL Time-Warner? Of course not. The same can be said of any Big Media outlet. Even Big Media itself concedes that Citizen Media may be the only way to get fair, unadulterated news.
John Q. Public is building up trust in Citizen Media. He trusts that we don’t censor ourselves, that we don’t pander to corporate sponsors or political agendas, and that we will give him the straight dope, as we see it. What we report is biased and opinionated, yes, but so many of us do it that a balance is struck. I like this, you hate it. Between us we’ll tell John Q. Public everything he needs to make up his own mind.
But, if an accusation of corporate or political influence is levied, it would shake John’s faith in Citizen Media. Imagine this scenario: Denton (or whomever) meets someone at a party who says she can give him an exclusive to a juicy news story. A week later this woman calls Denton and tips him off to chemical waste dumping in Nebraska. Running with the exclusive, Denton’s bloggers rush it to post, beating Big Media. Then more information about the waste dumping is fed to the bloggers: There are X number of leukemia cases being reported around the dumping zone; County Commissioner Smith was paid off to ignore the dumping; County Commissioner Smith claims that the Governor made the deal ten years ago; no, not the current Governor, the Governor ten years prior, the current U.S. Senator Jones… The events of the story unfold in blogs and in Big Media, building public trust and reliance on at least the blogs that broke the story and carried the major points of the issue. Congressional hearings occur. At the next election, Senator Jones is ousted by an overwhelming majority.
Since breaking the original story, Gawker, Wonkette, et al have been capitalizing on their increased traffic. Advertisers are lining up for runs. One such run, a particularly large and profitable one, is from a food distribution company which happens to be a subsidiary of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. The Washington Post digs up evidence that Denton’s contact was a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. The new Senator, replacing disgraced Senator Jones, is much more sympathetic to the interests of the pharmaceutical lobby than was Jones.
You can see the potential damage to Citizen Media’s credibility. Find a second instance of blogs pandering–intentionally or unintentionally, with or without the blogger’s knowledge–to private interest, and John Q. Public will think twice before believing anything Citizen Media says. If the first or even second to fall is the blogosphere’s poster boy, whether Denton or someone who succeeds him for the role, the event will severely diminish the public’s faith in Citizen Media.
While it does benefit the blogosphere to have a figure head, that individual’s credibility becomes equivalent to the blogosphere’s as a whole. Figure heads are human, with human failings. The higher they climb (or are elevated, depending on your point of view), the more interested Big Media becomes in knocking them down. If Denton is Citizen Media’s figure head, and Denton is already getting into bed with corporate blogging, maybe we should think about ways to step out from under the avalanche if he gets knocked down.