OxBlog

# Posted 10:39 AM by Patrick Belton

ANOTHER VILLAGE LET THEIR IDIOTARIAN SLIP OUT: In a remarkably insubstantial, whiny piece, Alex Jones of the Kennedy School of Government manages to do precisely what he accuses blogs of: making vituperative arguments driven by emotion rather than fact, and marked by remarkable lack of engagement with facts or evidence, or an understanding of the subject matter at hand.

Jones lists the following as the 'common attributes of the blogosphere: vulgarity, scorching insults, bitter denunciations, one-sided arguments, erroneous assertions and the array of qualities that might be expected from a blustering know-it-all in a bar'. Oddly, this seems to describe fairly well the fare of most politics shows broadcast over cable networks at the moment. Blogging, as I've experienced it, is characterised by polite running conversations, backed up by evidence. I have to respond to friends on my left such as Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias, and ones to my right such as the Winds of Change. Maureen Dowd doesn't.

Bloggers, says Jones, also 'don't add reporting to the personal views they post online'. Perhaps Jones doesn't understand the point of opinion journalism, which is to add commentary, analysis, and criticism to the facts covered by the news, as well as to examine the very process by which the news outlets report and represent those facts in their reporting.

It would seem that the director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press at Harvard has a thing or two to learn about the press. Let's hope, for his sake, that he does.

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