Negative attack blogs are playing a role in elections today. Here in beautiful Rogers Park, a couple of nasty people with way too much time on their hands have set to work to systematically set out to frame the debate surrounding the re-election of Alderman Joe Moore, a progressive with a prove record of accomplishment and distinction.
Many of these blogs are anonymous, and many of them thrive on misinformation, deceptive practices, slander, and out right lies.
Many of these blogs assume to publish truth, or behave as though they are journalistic entities, although they aren't bound by traditional journalistic principals such as fact checking, or balance.
Some Blogs allow comments, while others selectively delete comments that the blog author doesn't agree with.
The one thing that most of these negative blogs share, is a willingness to engage in the politics of destruction. Taking a page from the Karl Rove school of politics, and the "Fair and Balanced," school of journalism, these blogs have had a significant, and unfortunate consequence: turning the aldermanic campaign in the 49th Ward into a nasty race that has the net effect of turning people away from the political process.
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4 comments:
I can only assume my blog is one that you find upsetting. Correct me if I'm wrong about that.
What I find interesting about your post is that you seem to set standards, and then violate them, all in the same post.
You dislike negativity in blogs, but your blog post is nothing but negative complaints about other people's negative blogs.
You like journalistic standards, but you describe a politician in glowing terms, without defining those terms or otherwise substantiating your assertions. You also broadly smear the labels of "misinformation, deceptive practices, slander, and out right lies," but you don't say what or who.
You dislike anonymity, but you post under an assumed name, and your profile includes no identifying information.
Also, you might pay more attention to spelling:
"Outright lies," not "out right lies."
"Journalistic principles," not "journalistic principals."
"Proven record, not "prove record."
I'll leave your dangling participle alone for the moment, since it's popular these days as a construction to end a sentence with.
Anyway, your post is a meta-attackblog, an attackblog against attackblogs. I'm totally okay with that, but if you're going to do it with bad spelling and no sense of humor, you're going to get laughed at. A lot.
What exactly are you trying to do?
The other thing is, most of the blog hosts are not anonymous. And I'm afraid, it's more than just a couple! I do agree that the level of discourse could use some improvements, but at least it gives people a chance to debate, get news (though slanted at times), and vent if need be.
Nastiness in politics is par for the course unfortunately and I see no signs of that changing. Your candidate is no exception to this from what I read and hear.
http://rogersparkbench.blogspot.com/2007/03/hooded-truth-squad.html
From looking at the RP Rake, I get the idea that Tom Westgard likes little girls. Quite a few pics of little girls in suggestive poses.
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