High Chamberlain Hugh Hewitt continues to lead the campaign against the crumbling old media citadel with this powerful broadside in the Weekly Standard. His Theory of Asymmetrical Tolerance attempts to explain “how the old media went left into a deep ditch of agenda journalism, forfeiting the trust of a large portion of their audience and, in the process, opening the door to Rush Limbaugh, the second generation of radio talkers, Fox News, and, of course, the blogs.”
Hugh has been at the forefront of promoting the power of blogs to completely obliterate the old media’s monopolized grasp on controlling the flow of information. On his radio show of late, he has been continually touting figures showing the blogosphere’s ranks surpassing 5 million. His goal? To double that number by the end of 2005.
Hugh continues to do a great service to the blogosphere, actively recruiting to swell the ranks of the critical, independent-minded, skilled, opinionated, and often pajama-clad citizens at their computers keeping collective eyes on agenda journalism and holding it to public account. What a privilege to be part of this growing army for more than 10 months now (even if I almost never blog in my pajamas)! If you don’t have your own blog yet, why not?
Go and pre-order a copy of Hugh’s new book Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation that is Changing Your World. It’s on my Christmas/Birthday list, and should I not receive it within the next 10 days as a gift, I’ll be purchasing myself a copy posthaste. Not a bad idea. (Go now! For some reason, Blog has dipped to #99 on the Amazon bestsellers list.)
Towards the end of his Weekly Standard piece, Hugh offers a suggested list of questions journalists should have to answer in the interest of full disclosure, a way to make transparent and combat the effects of agenda journalism. Well, in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve decided to answer them myself:
“For whom did the reporter vote for president in the past five elections?”
2004 – Bush
2000 – Bush
1996 – Dole
1992 – too young (supported Bush)
1988 – too young (supported Bush)
“Do they attend church regularly and if so, in which denomination?”
Yes. Baptist.
“Do they believe that the late-term abortion procedure known as partial-birth abortion should be legal?”
No.
“Do they believe same sex marriage ought to be legal?”
No.
“Did they support the invasion of Iraq?”
Yes.
“Do they support drilling in ANWR?”
Yes.
But you probably already know where I’m coming from. Vive la blogosphere!
Questions for Every Reporter (and Blogger, too!)
In a post earlier this week, Hugh had challenged reporters in the legacy media to answer the a few questions in order for us to better understand their own biases. Unlike the legacy media, bloggers don’t attempt to hide their biases because they don’…