thomascwaters.com

Yesterday, I posted about how the Far Right constructs lies and misinformation to perpetuate it’s assaults on good and needed legislation. Specifically, the lie that even gay activists are against Inclusive ENDA.  Today, I want to take that a bit further, because I think there are a few really crucial points to grasp about how this is done. We can’t stop this lying and misinforming behavior, so the only solution is to be able to call it what it is and counter it with real information.

A few weeks ago, I heard on the news, that President Obama had said something to the effect that we needed less blogosphere and more news media/ real reporting. As a blogger, I guess I could be upset about that, but I’m not really. First, because I didn’t go in and find out what he actually said and why he said it. Second, because I think I know what he meant and my own thoughts are somewhat aligned. My beef isn’t with the blogosphere itself, but with “opinion media” where facts, fact checking and objectivity mean nothing. The most visible examples of this is FOX News (really???) with people like Glen Beck, who claims Obama has a hatred for White people and the white culture, but then when pressed, can’t say anything to support such a claim. But the blogosphere has no shortage of similar BS factories, which parade as more than opinion outlets.

In traditional media, there were always opinions. The Opinion Editorial portion of the paper was a distinct section of the paper, and letters to the editor provided an outlet for readers to give voice to their own ideas about what was important and how they saw things. But as Media has changed, the lines between these News and Editorial sections have become muddy or in some cases non-existant. Bloggers have the opportunity to blurry those lines even more, by stating things as if they are fact (appears like news reporting) when they are actually opinion/editorial. One way a blog can counter doing that, is to have a comments section. That way, the information shared can be countered by readers.  Not having a commenting mechanism, does two things:

• Limits and forces thought processes and ideas in the direction of the writer alone.
• Presents something with the implication there are no alternative viewpoints.
• Because there are no alternative viewpoints, implies that something is factual, i.e. news instead of opinion. News that is meant to be consumed, instead of ideas meant to be discussed.

Thus is the case with the blog posts I pointed out yesterday. The original source for the distortion was a post on Gay Patriot, truly a blog where opinions are expressed and presented as opinions. Commenting is allowed. Then, commentary about the blog post was written on Pam’s House Blend, another clear blog, where commenting is allowed. And then, used to create a distortion on Renew America. Here, there is no ability to leave comments which allows no method to counter misinformation or provide a different viewpoint. and, while the site claims that the “viewpoints expressed” are those of the writers, posts are called articles instead of posts or blog entries. The bloggers are called Columnists.  This isn’t horrible or evil by any means. but it is an example of the way misinformation and lies become validated as if they are true.