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September 22, 2004

Intellectual Blinders Worn Proudly

A law professor at the University of Texas is upset that the blogosphere is covering what he considers to be unimportant issues like the CBS forgeries rather than the far more important issues like Michelle Malkin's book. In the tradition of people with more rhetoric than reason, the professor demonstrates his command of ad hominem in the hopes of fooling his readers into thinking that he's right without offering a real argument. Ann Althouse is knocking him about, but he is apparently too dense to realize when he's beaten.

I realize that, if you're a John Kerry fan, I almost certainly won't be able to convince you that the CBS issue matters. But, since it's my bandwidth, I'm going to try anyhow.

Despite what some (including Professor Leiter and myself) consider overstated triumphalism in the blogosphere, the blogosphere is unlikely to ever be anything more than an adjunct to the media. When I'm looking for something to write about, I go to the media first. Why? Because they have the assets to cover topics in far more depth than I normally can, and because we expect the media to go out and find the facts. The blogosphere (really the Internet) offers people who can go into greater depth than the media, because the media is run by generalists, but we normally only get involved after the media has done the groundwork on an issue. Further, even when the blogosphere gets involved, it is really only successful when it can push the information it has gathered into the public eye via the media. I think the blogosphere offers far more value than Professor Leiter does, but the media remains vital.

Which means we're placing a lot of trust in the media. When they present information to the public, they receive the benefit of the doubt; we assume that stories we see on TV and read in the paper are accurate (despite a great deal of evidence to the contrary). So the fact CBS was willing to use documents that even their own experts thought were questionable is a big problem, because it calls into question the possibility the media is using its considerable powers to take sides in a presidential election. I'd call that a problem. Which is why the CBS documents question is more important than CBS (or Professor Leiter) would like to admit.