The poor dear little darlings…
Media/political bloggers are mean bullies to poor little (well-paid, high-profile, big-time) reporters!
Journalists covering the campaign believe the intent is often to bully them into caving to a particular point of view. They insist the efforts have not swayed them in any significant way, though others worry the criticism could eventually have a chilling effect.
Is it true? Apparently so:
“I’ve come to feel the only way you can really deal with the press corps is to beat up on them,” [Bob] Somerby said.
Jay Rosen, a champion of civic journalism and weblogging, had this to say.
“The traditional players, including the press, have lost some of the control or exclusive control they used to have…I think there’s a campaign under way to totally politicize journalism and totally politicize press criticism. It’s really an attack not just on the liberal media or press bias, it’s an attack on professionalism itself, on the idea that there could be disinterested reporters”.
Ah-ha! Now there’s something interesting (because charges of media bias certainly are not): These mean media/political bloggers are attacking professionalism. Or, to put it in a scarier way (for an academic, anyway): These mean media/political bloggers want to deny journalistic (objectivist) epistemology! And if they succeed in convincing citizens that there is no “disinterested” reporting, then we might be on the verge of a radical change in journalism to something a lot more like the civic model.
How I love those bullies 
