Pirate's Cove

It started with an article about Target blowing off a question from a blogger

Target to the blogosphere: you’re irrelevant.

That was the message the cheap-chic retailer seemed to convey in an abrupt e-mail message to ShapingYouth.org, a blog about the impact of marketing on children. Early this month, the blog’s founder, Amy Jussel, called Target, complaining about a new advertising campaign that depicted a woman splayed across a big target pattern — the retailer’s emblem — with the bull’s-eye at her crotch.

“Targeting crotches with a bull’s-eye is not the message we should be putting out there,” she said in an e-mail interview.

Target offered an e-mail response:

“Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets,” a public relations person wrote to ShapingYouth.

The Grey Lady then went on to ask their diminishing reader base: Target to the blogosphere: you’re irrelevant. Do you think bloggers should expect to be treated the same as traditional media outlets?

Follow some of the comments, if ye like, such as

At this point in time, blogging is an unrestricted method of expressing personal opinion without the standards of traditional media outlets. Bloggers, by definition, can hide behind whatever persona they wish to present. Honesty and truth are difficult to track and/or confirm when there is no trail of legitimate responsibility behind the writer. With provenance will come comparable treatment.

No, unless they are credentialed (i.e. NY Times reporter with a blog).

Yes, because being credentialed helped Jason Blair. Or how about Walter Duranty? Rick Bragg? Hassan Fattah? Oh, hell, just go to this Wikipedia page for some woppers by the Big Credentialed Media.

How many times has the blogosphere caught the Credentialed Media falsifying, spinning, and distorting stories, and using photoshopped or improper photos? Heck, Rusty caught one a few days ago. Gateway Pundit has a story about one, with lots of links, regarding the NY Times from August 2006.

Newsbusters has a story on a staged AP Arrafat photo op.

And let’s not forget honest reporting that saw Dan Rather’s career at cBS end.

And the Newsweek article about flushed Koran’s that directly led to rioting, mayhem, and people’s deaths.

The list could go on and on.

Yes, everyone makes mistakes. Such is life. The media makes mistakes. Some of them are intentional, though. And cause damage.

Yes, blogging is quite a bit about personal opinion of an issue. It is an outlet for people to become envolved in discourse. And not all of it is honest. Funny how it’s the blogosphere (mostly the Right) who keeps catching the Credentialed Media in shenanigans, eh?

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Mark My Words, Adam’s Blog, Cao’s Blog, Leaning Straight Up, Adeline and Hazel, third world county, DragonLady’s World, The Pink Flamingo, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, A Newt One, A Newt One- blog talkradio show tonight, Right Voices, Stageleft, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.