HW 19: Applying Graff Chapter 10 to Drenzer & Farrell's "Web of Influence"

I choose to pick a paragraph from "Web of Influence" which is about blogging and how it ties in politics and the media's reaction to it. The paragraph described how, "The most noteworthy was CBS News' acknowledgement that it could not authenticate documents it had used in a story about President George W. Bush's National Guard Service that bloggers had identified as foreigners." (Burstein and Kline 90) The importance of the paragraph is that it showed the parallels in the decline of journalism and the post also goes on to explain whyt here are so many problem between what the media broadcasts and the actual truth, which is often posted on blogs for people to comment on. "Their often blatant partianship discredits them in many newsrooms." (Burstein and Kline) In other words, the main point that I got from reading this paragraph, and mainly why I chose to post a comment on it was because it was explaining how blogs influence people and provide information that most people won't normally tend to focus on, let alone, read about. "It was really just the first time people could read about them." (Burstein and Kline 90) I found this to be very true. Often what people read in posts on a particular blog is something that attracts their attention or is part of another post so they wouldn't necessarily have choosen to read about it. My point is, that I personally feel that blogs are very important for this reason. Yes, blogs have their own problems but for the most part these problems are what people want to know about. For example, a Professor at Yale University named Jack Balkin said, "The blogoshpere has some built-in correction mechanisms for ideaological bias, as "bloggers who write about political subjects cannot avoid addressing (and, more importantly, linking to) arguments made by people with different views." (Burstein and Kline 90-91) Everyone wants to read about the faults or problems that are occuring in the world. It is what draws people in and somehow makes them feel better about their own lives. Drenzel and Farell both state that, "The reason is that much of the blogoshpere is devoted to critizing what other people have to say." (Burstein and Kline 91)