Left In Lowell

So I went on WUML’s Thinking Out Loud today. It was surprisingly fun, though generally I don’t like microphones or video cameras of any sort. My DVD/Karaoke machine notwithstanding.

There was a lot I didn’t get to talk about in the 20 minutes I had, such as the specific impacts that blogs, local or otherwise, have had on the media and the political discourse, such as with the Downing Street Memo (which, you may recall, didn’t get much traction in the media until the left wing blogs had agitated so much, they had to). Bloggers such as SusanG and NYBri of DailyKos, who helped expose Jeff Gannon as a right wing shill lodged in the White House Press Corps, have had huge impacts in getting coverage for stories the mainstream media is either too lazy and cheap to investigate, or else is putting out news that is not put in the proper context. Susan and Brian have now formed ePluibusMedia, a community group volunteering thousands of hours for group investigative journalism, a model they formed while investigating Gannon.

The mainstream media is famous for sticking to easy-to-cover storylines, such as the “he-said, she-said” coverage of the 2004 presidential election. The best and brightest blogs try to put the news in its proper context, while still sticking to objective facts. The most influential of these can successfully compel the media to do the job they were supposed to do in the first place.

There’s a lot more navel gazing I could do, but you’re not here for that. If you’re here for the first time, take a look around. Have a click or two at the links - I maintain a growing list of other progressive Mass bloggers. Maybe there’s one living near you.