Every once in a while I need to plug my favorite comic strip User Friendly. Head on over there and succumb to productivity virus. Then drop on by the Undernet IRC channel #userfriendly. Then hop on over to http://www.iamevil.net to see what some of us goofy people look like. 🙂
The following articles present blogs as something more than a fad, more than leisure-time rambling. Blogs can be a powerful tool. They offer a chance to bypass traditional media.
I have often heard that professional journalism is unbiased. Bullfeathers. If you've never read a liberally-slanted newspaper, watched a conservative news report, or listened to reactionary radio, you've had your head in the sand. Yes, blogs are inherently biased, but so is professional journalism. The difference is that bloggers don't pretend to be unbiased. What you see is what you get. It's raw, unrefined, and honest as hell. Sure, there's a lot of B.S. floating around out there. Heck, look at some of the crap I post. 😉 We have a choice, though, whether or not to accept it. When traditional news media claim to be presenting the whole, unadulterated truth, we tend to feel obligated to believe it. We're told it's the truth and that we can trust them and their sources. Weblogs, on the other hand, offer no promises. Take it or leave it. Make your own opinions. Hear all sides of story. If you read enough biased reports of an event, eventually the truth filters out. It's there in every point of view once you get by imperfect memories, prejudice, and emotions.
Now it's time I step off my soap box for a moment and go find some news bloggers.
P.S. I'd be a hypocrite if I completely bashed traditional news outlets. Obviously, I link to such sites. However, I offer my own opinions on matters reported on those pages and I encourage my readership (Hello? Is there anybody out there?) to do the same.
In a similar vein as the last link post …
"From a time when champions were measured not by their contracts and endorsements but by the sweat and blood and courage they smeared on the canvas, come the past battles of the WWWF. For those of you new to the Grudge Match Experience™, or if you're just yearning for a return to the days on the Frozen Tundra™, look no further. From Gary "Iron Dukes" Coleman to Ray "Dead-Eye" Charles, all of the legends are here. Although the voting has been disabled, you may peruse through the matches of yesteryear and bask in their greatness."
