More Futile Underwear Humor by the MSM

In separate posts, State 29 and Roth & Co. each point out this editorial showing that Ken Fuson of the Des Moines Register has not a clue what the blogosphere is or is about:

"But that's not the big news. Blogs are.

Perhaps you have not heard of blogs. The name derives from a combination of "blather" and "logorrhea."

One of the unexpected benefits of the Internet, other than the ability to look really busy at work while filling out your NCAA tournament brackets, is that people can design their own personal Web sites and then report and comment on the big issues of the day as often as they want. These are called blogs.

This has proved to be a boon to people who apparently are (A) unemployed, (B) independently wealthy, or (C) no longer content to wait on hold to get their daily fix of attention from a radio talk-show host.

Let's put it another way: You know those people who like to write letters to the editor? A blog allows them to write letters all day long, on any subject they choose, without worrying about having the profanity removed or having any of their lunatic rants checked for accuracy.

Write all you want? No editors? More profane than a David Mamet character? We reporters have a word for this: E-mail. No, wait: Heaven."

Okay, enough is enough, Mr. Fuson. Pajama (or in your case, underwear) jokes aside, are you being deliberately obtuse or simply lacking the fundamentals in research for your column. Setting aside the big-name bloggers - like Professor Glenn Reynolds, Professor Volokh and his fellow-professor co-conspirators, professional journalist Matthew Yglesias, nobel prizewinner Gary Becker and Judge Richard Posner - just forgetting about the vast list of pro-blogs, and dealing on the local level. Who's sitting "at home in our underwear" according to you? Law professors. Attorneys. Accountants. Just to name a few.

I find it hilarious, the way you and the rest of the MSM will use examples of lunatic fringe bloggers and try to color the entire medium with the same brush, because after all a blogger is a blogger is a blogger. And you don't want to associate with those people, now do you?

Ever hear of the National Enquirer, the Star? Should we equate your Register with the "the devil lives in my microwave" gossip rag, simply because the means by which the message is delivered is similar? After all, a paper is a paper is a paper.

But of course, it's easier to just whip out a column laced with smug underwear references than it is to actually do a little research on the subject, isn't it?

All in all, I think I agree with your premise that "In the entire country, there are about six reporters who actually interview people and write stories that reveal new information."

And obviously you aren't one of them.


(Speaking of gossip, for an interesting little tidbit about Mr. Fuson's return to the Register after leaving in a snit back in 1996, go here. Don't worry, it's the American Journalism Review. Not exactly the National Enquirer.)