In response to this question on a thread at the Leftist blog Eschaton,
Do you think bloggers have the raw power the mainstream media posseses?I wrote:
No, but they're making their presence felt. They are exerting a big influence on Big Media. Just ask Rather and Mapes.To this, one of Eschaton's regular guest posters, Robert M. Jeffers, remarked (emphasis mine):
Bloggers as outliers for Limbaugh and FoxNews, nothing more.What a ridiculous position!
If not for talk radio and FoxNews, nothing would ever have happened at CBS over that story. The WH used that support, and only incidentally bloggers, to raise a ruckus and change the subject (which was always about Bush's service, never about the documentation. In fact, the real story was about the curious lack of documentation).
That story was really about CBS kissing the White House's ring finger. Imagine Ben Bradlee doing Nixon's bidding, if you can. It wasn't bloggers who caused that, or even strongly influenced it. If CBS had the spine Ben Bradlee once showed, there never would have been a story about Rather for conservative bloggers to brag about...
Regardless of how the Killian Forgeries were exposed, the fact that they were should be all the impetus a reputable news organization would require to issue a retraction and an apology. But Jeffers faults CBS News for insufficiently stonewalling on the truth of the hoax. Well, let's be fair: they gave it their all ---for about a week and a half.
But the important point here is that it was the blogosphere that moved the Rathergate scandal. Wholly and absolutely. Big Media outlets ---and I don't know jack about Limbaugh since I can't listen to the man--- were playing catch-up the whole way through. There's no question about that. It took several news cycles before even organizations like FNC picked up on it. It was blogs like Little Green Footballs and Power Line and the bulletin board Free Republic (where it initially got its start) that moved on the forgeries around the clock.
Of course, we all know that Karl Rove controls the blogosphere, but I'm still pretending otherwise.