Monday, February 19, 2007

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.

3 comments:

ellroon said...

I used to read my paper from cover to cover. I used to watch CNN when Turner owned it. I used to watch the local news station.

Now I turn on my computer and go to sources across the world and the blogs I trust. How many of us do that now? How big is the blogosphere? And how many people do not care they are being lied to (besides the 33% base who will never believe anything except the party line.)?

Anonymous said...

and i be proud to re-join up now and count me in proudly to be called one of the millions of 'vulger common people' (reference 1st post per Riverbend is Back) you betcha this is 'street fighting', the tried and true way to re-claim our country.
I quit wathcing tv news years ago, pretty much gave up tv. try it, tis quite liberating. addiction, eh? i challeng you to go two or three days without flipping on tv news.

ellroon said...

Lol, sagemarm! Welcome to the crowd!