I second my SDP colleague Master Heppler with regard to Todd Epp's post on South Dakota's very own Pagegate. Master Epp locks horns with Professor David Newquist ( I know what that is like), and defends the South Dakota War College coverage of the accusations against State Senator Dan Sutton. I was particularly fond of these Eppic paragraphs:
As to David and any other critics out there, you're welcome to your opinion and it might even be right. But you can't have it both ways: do you want to know what goes on in Pierre with our legislators or don't you? Do you have a right to know if there are investigations of our public officials or don't you? You choose.
But one thing is certain. If you wait for the SD MSM to do the coverage, sometimes you may be waiting a very long time.
A lot of folks who complain about the media and secrecy in government don't really want the media to be more honest or the government to be more open. They just the media to to say what they want to hear, and for government to release all the information and only the information that pads their own perspective.
The blogosphere has indeed revolutionized political reporting. It has done so by democratizing it, in the Greek sense of that word. Anyone blogging from his basement (as I am in fact doing right now) can challenge the MSM. And the MSM is frequently compelled to take notice and get its butt in gear. Of course you are not going to always get from bloggers
the basic ingredients of verfication, meticulous citation of the facts, or statements from people involved that would be required in a legitimate news story.
In fact, you will often get
vague charges inflated by prurient innuendo and implication, and, of course, downright mean and trivial-nasty partisanship.
As someone working for a respectable newspaper might say, there goes the neighborhood. Real democracy lets a lot of people speak up whose mud-stained overalls and coarse speech might displease your average English Professor. And course your well-mannered professor, careful and moderate in his own writing, is right to want a more finished product in the end. But maybe we want to get all the ingredients into the stew before we start trying to boil it down.
South Dakota War College did an admirable job on this story, and Todd Epp is to be praised for pointing that out.
Recent Comments