Ridiculing Bloggers

I admit, sometimes I do laugh at jokes disparaging bloggers. But at the same time, I think they're an entirely valuable medium, I'm thinking of the vast groups of marginalized people talking about their lives and issues. Events are reported which never make the news, such as Iraqi's who are blogging in Arabic and translating it to English. Blogs take up the slack where the mainstream media fails horrendously. I mean, one person owns nearly every paper in Canada, and they control reporting on Palestine/Israeli conflicts with a sympathetic bent towards Israelis. Reporters have failed miserably to ask the important questions, and Canadian reporters especially have restrictions on breaking certain important stories. I mean, if a Canadian journalist ended up with a CSIS document about aliens working in tandem with the Canadian government, we wouldn't hear about it, they'd just give it back to CSIS.

It wouldn't be so bad if the mainstream media wasn't on this prolonged idealogical war against bloggers by making fun of us all the time as basement pasty losers talking about how many pimples we squeezed today. Obviously if they're so invested in ridiculing us then they're severely threatened by blogging. Take this lengthy diatribe on the downfall of civilization as caused by blogging.

I don't always talk newsy stuff, but sometimes I do. Sometimes I can tell you stuff no one else knows or can talk about safely. Sometimes I just talk about my family or my animals. Sometimes I rant on the state of the Canadian Art World. Sometimes I talk about race and sexuality. Sometimes I talk film and media. It's not following a definite theme or adhering to any kind of standard, but it's still relevant. Same with all the other blogs I read. For instance, the news isn't going to report on a transman being sexually assaulted when using the women's restroom, but a blog will. You won't hear the daily life of a family living in Bagdad on CNN but you will in a blog.

So basically, blogs are for people who's voices aren't heard. And that's why the media hates us.