Roaming Between Meltdown and Release

Hats off to Michelle Malkin for her dogged reporting on the Eason Jordan/Davos debacle. Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal faulted her reporting as "suspended between meltdown and release" and then claims that the blogosphere is too quick to post derogatory material without giving the target a chance to respond. She nails him here and has quite a bit of fun with the new moniker.

In the age of print publication, it was important to hold back until targets were given an opportunity to express their side of the matter. After all, once the printing press starts, it won't be stopped, and retractions tend not to be conspicuous or timely.

The blogosphere is an INTERACTIVE media; it roams frenetically between meltdown and release. Yes it needs to check facts, and yes, it should give targets a chance to respond (like Hugh Hewitt did for Stephens, his blog cites you here for the transcript). But NO, the blog isn't going to wait. It is so amenable to amendment, it is so conspicuously correctable, and it is so abruptly updating that many print journalism standards need not apply.

But that distinction does not stop the MSM "grown ups" from hand-wringing over the blog medium. It's starting to look like there's a new sheriff in town, and some folks just don't like it.