We ARE the fifth estate

I'm newer to Taylor Marsh's work, but I flat out love her writing. Today, I read a piece on her blog about bloggers being the Fifth Estate, and it really resonated with me. I'd never really looked at it that way, but the so-called Blogosphere really is turning into just that - an alternative to the increasingly consolidated and pliant Fourth Estate.

Each and every day, I see something ridiculously slanted or hardly believable, and I lose just a little more confidence in our free press.

Most troubling and annoying of all is how easily manipulated the press is, specifically by this administration. For instance, on the Sunday before the 2006 election, Iraq announced the Saddam Hussein verdict. Or this past February 15, when Bush faced the first significant "No" vote about the war, the Army conveniently announced that it had "captured" a senior Al-Qaeda member. It later turned out to be false.

Blogging is incredibly empowering. The only other time I've felt this empowered is when I campaigned very hard for John Kerry in 2004.

My favorite passage from Marsh's piece:

Since the fourth estate is The Press, then I think it's safe to finally say that the Internets have created another. We are the fifth estate; people who don't take what the corporate hack pack says just because it's uttered from their vaunted and well paid podium. Call it push back or talking back, the blogosphere is here to stay and is ticking people off.

The corporate hack pack, whose very word used to be golden, has started to weigh in and they agree. But because they've lost the high perch on which they have pontificated without challenge for years, they're becoming slightly unhinged over their loss of status. The real issue being declining circulation of both newspapers and magazines that threatens their very existence and their paychecks. The Press has become nervous about their very livelihood. Considering how horribly they've served the public over the last seven years I'd say their concern is justified. Lashing out doesn't help their credibility either, but it's what the powerful do when they're challenged by the people.

She flat out nails it. And it's very important to note that everyone can and should stay involved and on top of the whole idea of Net Neutrality, which the giant media conglomerates so desperately want to do away with. We cannot let that happen, ever, under any circumstances.

Read more on Net Neutrality, and what you can do to maintain it, Here.

Another important movement gaining momentum is the increasing calls to support bloggers' rights. Eff.org is a great organization to join, and a great Website to visit often to get updates on this important issue.

Taylor Marsh has more.

Great PBS piece on pre-war press "coverage"

Check out this piece from this week's edition of Frontline.

It seems like a world long, long ago when there wasn't a War in Iraq. Also, with 20/20 hindsight, it seems unfortunate, sad and an outrage that the press not only didn't do its job adequately, it scarcely did its job at all during the run up to war.

The next time you hear someone say (or maybe even you believe) that the New York Times is a liberal paper, think back to or even look up the stories that Judith Miller's penned leading up to the war. (The Times later ran a mea culpa of sorts, and while it didn't name Miller by name, most of the stories that editorial discussed were written or co-written by Miller.)

From my chair, the press has been out to lunch since September 11 until sometime last year, when it began to wake up to the fact that the War in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster. It's about time that some leading media outlets are starting to play the role that The Fourth Estate was originally intended - that of governmental watchdog.

It's about time.

Even Bob Woodward, the stereotypical hungry reporter who was previously thought to not care where a story took him no matter what wrote two tomes early in the Bush Presidency that were nauseating suck-ups: Plan of Attack and Bush at War. At least he made up for it with State of Denial, Bush at War, Part III.

But, the coverage is changing.

Better late than never.