MC: Blogs Reveal, Media Conceal

The New York Times, for example, published its first story on the controversy Monday, about 30 hours after Jones’ resignation. On Sept. 4, while the blogosphere was aflame with Jones stories, Byron York, writing for the Washington Examiner, tabulated every word dedicated to the Jones controversy by the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC News, NBC News, and CBS news. All these mainstream news services finished in a dead heat with zero. Since Jones’ early Sunday morning resignation, elite opinion and the mainstream media have been lamenting the fact that the alternative media were able to drive from power someone they obviously admired. The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman called the alternative media an “open sewer.” But this smear campaign amounted to the vicious and unfair disinterment of videotape and irrefutable documentation of Jones’ radicalism. The most effective witness against Jones was Jones/ Michael Costello , Lewiston Tribune. More here .

Question: Do blogs and alternative media play an important role in today’s media? Or are they overrated — and simply a source of much misinformation?