{"id":1163,"date":"2007-03-17T20:57:22","date_gmt":"2007-03-18T03:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=1163"},"modified":"2008-03-04T01:42:27","modified_gmt":"2008-03-04T08:42:27","slug":"webloggers-and-the-press-part-ii-oversight-and-swag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1163\/webloggers-and-the-press-part-ii-oversight-and-swag\/","title":{"rendered":"Webloggers and the press, Part II: Oversight and S.W.A.G."},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, I wrote about my objections to webloggers being regarded as “the press”<\/a>. My post was interesting, I hope, but the comments were fascinating<\/i> (by which device I commend you thither<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But wait. There’s more. An important reason not to regard — or to affect to regard — webloggers as “the press,” is simply that the transparency of weblogging entails a vigilant oversight of<\/i> “the press.” They don’t link. We do. There can be valid reasons for not linking — technologically impossible or ossification of writing habits. But again and again mainstream media figures are exposed as having taken tendentious positions, attempting to take advantage of the audience’s relative ignorance. James Taranto has made a career of exposing the self-destructive biases of The New York Times<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Occasionally, a deceptive weblogger will be exposed in the same way — but that’s the point. We<\/i> live in a world where we expect<\/i> every assertion of fact to be checked and challenged. For too long they<\/i> (not all of them, but the worst of them), have lived in a world where they expected to be taken on faith — and where that faith was easily abused. They will be much improved, in time, by mastering our virtues. We have nothing to gain — and everything to lose — by enmiring our reputations in their vices.<\/p>\n

And it is important to make the distinction between viewpoint and bias. A point of view is common — all but ubiquitous — among weblogs. We are not all<\/i> about opinion, as is sometimes charged, but a weblogger’s opinions are never very far from his keyboard — nor should they be. By contrast, bias or tendency is an attempt to sway by underhanded means — by deliberately quoting out of context, for example, or deliberately ignoring a contrary point of view. Ideologues of all stripes shriek about bias in the mainstream media because the mainstream media loudly proclaims itself to be without<\/i> tendency. It is very easy to discount for a point of view. It is virtually impossibly properly to weigh the influence of a hidden bias.<\/p>\n

And still more: There can Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, I wrote about my objections to webloggers being regarded as “the press”. My post was interesting, I hope, but the comments were fascinating (by which device I commend you thither). But wait. There’s more. An important reason not to regard — or to affect to regard — webloggers as “the press,” is simply […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,5,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-real-estate","9":"category-weblogging-101","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":859,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/859\/bloodhoundblogs-brian-brady-hosts-phoenix-area-webloggers-forum\/","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":0},"title":"BloodhoundBlog’s Brian Brady hosts Phoenix-area webloggers forum","author":"Greg Swann","date":"January 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"About twenty Phoenix-area webloggers, many of them Active Rain participants, attended a real estate weblogging forum hosted today by BloodhoundBlog weblogger Brian Brady at the Phoenix Public Library in Downtown Phoenix. Today's event was a sort of get-acquainted meeting, with the attending bloggers introducing themselves and talking about their weblogging\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":358,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/358\/radio-daze-phoenix-area-real-estate-webloggers-make-a-five-theater-assault-on-the-market\/","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":1},"title":"Radio daze: Phoenix-area real estate webloggers make a five theater assault on the market . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Three Phoenix-area webloggers, Jay Thompson, The Phoenix Real Estate Guy, John Wake of Arizona Real Estate Notebook, and Greg Swann of BloodhoundBlog, helped turn a radio show into a five-media event: The radio broadcast itself, listener call-in questions, live weblogging with listener call-in and write-in questions, an on-line podcast and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1559,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1559\/real-estate-weblogging-101-a-how-to-book-in-weblog-form-for-would-be-real-estate-webloggers\/","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":2},"title":"Real Estate Weblogging 101: A how-to book-in-weblog-form for would-be real estate webloggers","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In commemoration of the Southwest Real Estate Blogging Conference, BloodhoundBlog today launches Real Estate Weblogging 101, a book-in-weblog-form about weblogging for real estate professionals. The book is built as a WordPress weblog because it seemed foolish to me to write about a deep-linking medium without deep linking. Even so, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1130,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1130\/what-is-the-difference-between-a-weblogger-and-the-press\/","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":3},"title":"What is the difference between a weblogger and the press?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1068,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1068\/the-blogfather-part-ii-i-could-have-blogged-all-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":4},"title":"The Blogfather Part II: I could have blogged all night . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The folks at ActiveRain are putting together a contest. It's Pygmalion for webloggers, wherein experienced real estate webloggers take eager young blogging caterpillars into their tutelage, and, Henry Higgins-like, bring forth beautiful blogging butterflies in a few months' time. The winning pair of bloggers will split $5,000 amongst their favorite\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1487,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1487\/dancing-on-bridges-understanding-great-real-estate-webloggers\/","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":5},"title":"Dancing on bridges: Apprehending great real estate webloggers…","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"[Okay, BloodhoundBlog will be two years old in less than an hour. Here's one more little bit of our past in celebration. This is from May 31st, 2007. --GSS] Question #1: Why did Microsoft call its new table-top touch-screen interface \"Surface\"? 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