Posted: 09/30/06 20:14, Edited: 09/30/06 14:14
by Dave Mindeman
Blogs don't have rules. They don't have guidelines. They don't have markers or boundaries. I guess it is up to each individual blog to make its own parameters.
This particular blog gives you the opinion of the author (whoever that happens to be), nothing more, nothing less. We understand that you have a variety of sources at your disposal to form your own opinion and we encourage you to utilize as many as you have time for.
But let's look one more time at Minnesota Democrats Exposed by Michael Brodkorb. I am still trying to figure out what MDE is. In theory, I guess it is supposed to be a simple blog -- but Brodkorb seems to expect his readers to accept him as newsmaker. He wants to make news (or distort news, depending on your take)... and he relishes the opportunities that the main stream media gives him to do just that.
But given what we have gradually found out about him, as he moves from an anonymous blogger to GOP Party spokesperson, the real description of Michael Brodkorb's role with his blog would be this:
Paid opposition researcher for a partisan campaign who uses a blog to release his information.
That's it.. pure and simple.
Yet, he thinks of himself as an investigative journalist. He truly believes that his one sided look at any subject counts as some kind of "truth". If you investigate something, you should be letting the facts lead you to wherever they go. Brodkorb sets out with a preconceived idea of what he wants and then only uses the facts that fit. That is NOT journalism and any main stream media person who uses that as a source is guilty of doing the same.
That's why he uses distorted descriptions of his "stories";... for instance:
He has a picture of Keith Ellison from 1998 holding the "Final Call", a publication of Louis Farakhan. He uses that 8 year old picture to attack Keith Ellison as lying about his assertion that his affiliation with Farakhan is in the past. Past... you know, as in 8 years ago!
He discovers some large donations from the Lac Qui Parle DFL party unit coming from Hatch donors and without knowing any of the facts uses the term "slush fund".
And at the same time he puts up posts about coming Republican ads as if it is "breaking news"... simply repeating the message without any critique of the factual nature of these ads.
He is proud of his "newsmaking" blog and he tells us that his background is all out in the open -- even though each piece of it had to be forced out by lawsuit or research by other blogs. And he criticizes liberal blogs for not being so forthcoming about their party activities. The problem is, none of the liberal bloggers get paid $4,500 per month or have the entire GOP opposition research arm at their disposal... or even have the same kind of party access. Most liberal bloggers do their own research on their own time and at their own expense.
Actually, there aren't any rules here that Brodkorb is breaking (that we know of, at least). We now know exactly who he is (although it took some time) and we know his purpose.
The real rules that get broken are from the main stream media -- they use his blog as a source and don't do their own fact checking; allowing his one-sided, distorted viewpoint to get newspaper space is the real distortion. Michael Brodkorb's place in the blogosphere should simply be another talking point for the Republican Party.
To elevate his message beyond that is to encourage the pervasise negative tone of political dialogue and furthur destroy the public trust.
