MediaBlog at NRO offers its take on the Wall Street Journal piece yesterday.
Rago defends the MSM on the grounds that its "institutional culture... screens editorially for originality, expertise and seriousness." Which is ironic, because his piece lacks two of the three.
1. Originality. Rago hasn't said anything about the state of the political blogosphere that Matt Welch didn't already cover in his April 2006 article "Farewell to Warblogging." And Welch actually knows whereof he speaks.
2. Expertise. If Rago knows enough about blogs to condemn them as sweepingly as he has here, then it isn't evident from reading his piece.
<snip>
Rago follows a depressingly well-worn path: He starts from the (false) premise that bloggers are out to replace the MSM, points out their inability to do what the MSM does, throws in some sneering riffs about how bad most of them are, and concludes that the MSM, despite all of its faults, is far superior.
He's wrong. Do we really have to explain why? Again?
UPDATE: Another annoying aspect of Rago's piece: His intentionally insulting tone ensured a reaction that would appear to support his "mob" thesis. Witness the pile-on.
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