The vulgarity of common bloggers

And why we should adopt a more civil tone, for fuck's sake.

Amanda Marcotte:

The word "vulgar" was by far the favorite word of critics, and make no mistake, it was used in a way that was consistent with its classist roots as a term denoting the lowly language, taste, behavior, and entertainments of the common people. John Broder of the NY Times made the classist connotations of the term explicit by suggesting that Edwards would teach us to use a more "civil tone". Bloggers are the vulgar common people and in order to get into the hallowed halls of politics, we need to become civilized. Joan Walsh, in her companion article to mine in Salon, also drew on class-based metaphors to describe what was distressing about the blogger invasion, when she called our style "street-fighing". Bill Donohue provided as religion hook to excite the masses, but I think the mainstream media was willing to entertain his baseless accusations because it provided them another opportunity to rail against the vulgar bloggers.

The mainstream media is afraid. The vulgarly common blogger citizen voter is no longer sitting passively being fed the pre-digested news. We are demanding journalists actually check facts and report. We recognize and challenge bias. We talk to others, share information, do research, provide links.

No wonder the mainstream media thinks we are dangerous.