Blogs: Who Needs 'Em?

OK, so today, in about two hours, President Bush will announce his nominee to the Supreme Court. I haven't read another blog in days, but I am sure the blogs far and wide are all a blather about the nomination, guessing, speculating, alerting, drawing whatever attention to themselves they can - hot on the trail... of what?

Do we really NEED all this Blog Blather?

I mean, when it comes to blogs, "blather" has become one of my favorite words.

What a bunch of typing, full of sound and fury, signifying... not much, really.

Not much.

Why not just wait and see? I mean, it's not like we can outguess this one as we might a presidential campaign. These sorts of secrets are better kept and not so interesting.

I'm just reminded yet again that bloggers really aren't journalists. They're gossips, making a virtual industry of loose lips and hearsay. Bloggers aren't trained to sift and sort and carefully segregate objective information. They're shuffling, and won't it get old after a while?

I mean REALLY. It's mostly hearsay, doomsday, get out of the way, rehash, yada yada yada look at me. Aren't so many blog surfers just caught in the tide pools?

Hey, let's just get to the boiler plate, the nuts and bolts, more often. Sure, repetition and buzz can be persuasive and even powerful, but that's rare. As Woodward and Bernstein said on "The Daily Show" recently, a lot of journalists are not doing their jobs well enough, much less the blabby bloggers.

Let's just see what news actually develops rather than tripping over each others' virtual crossed wires trying to keep web surfing, blog reading addicts snorting a line.


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