After the comics, I found in your three pieces something of interest to read in that newspaper, and that's a novelty.

I thought the three of you pulled your punches, and softened the truth until it became groupthink fantasizing. My so-called 'truth' is commercial mass media is a goner, relatively quickly. It's replacement looks to be email 'phone trees,' where news is passed along 'relay' style, through one person splaying out to many, (and through each of them a splay to many, etc.), which can accomplish, (when everyone is on-line -- the next Constitutional Right to be established), the mass delivery of news to everyone in minutes, (about 3 relays, one for each degree-of-separation between any location and the source location of the news).

'Phone trees' is a term used by school communities for the media they pass school bulletins and news in, but in internet terms it might shape up looking like 'blog trees,' which would be consortiums and syndicates of blogs, (personal news), as are emerging, and carried 'through' with realtime RSS feeds or somesuch involving email distribution lists of subscribing individuals.

And. Conclusion by concluding: In Blogs vs. MSM, blogs apparently win since the 3 columns amount to the newspaper presenting readers with a discussion of the survival of newspapers, whereas over in blog media readers have discussions of the survival of newspapers. It's unanimous.

What a waste of space those articles were! Collectively, they nary touched a single interesting issue about the blogosphere and its impact. Who wants to hear B!x whine about the fact nobody wanted to pay him for his reporting and insights about the minutae at city hall?

There are many very interesting things to say about the blogosphere. It basically took Dan Rather down because of its pirhana-like persistance. The MSM does not control the message any longer... was that even so much as pointed out by any one of the three people who were chosen by the MSM-Oregonian to comment?

Nope.

What is sad is how this series of stories demonstrates how oblivious both the press and bloggers are of America history. It is fair to say that blogs are pretty much in line with what the founders understood to be the press in their day: opinionated, not obligated to be burdened by facts, and published by anyone who had the interest and access to a printing press.

In fact, a pretty good argument can be made that the founders probably would be revolted by what the corporate mainstream press has claimed to have become, primarily for business and not civic reasons, because as fairly educated products of the Enlightment their writings generally demonstrate they were smart enough to know that intellectual objectivity is far beyond the mental skills of most people. On the other hand, they also would be less than impressed by what they read on this and most other blogs, where people of quite limited critical reasoning ability spew forth for no apparent reason. (They viewed newspapers mainly as organs of partisan political expression which is why many papers were actually published by political parties.)

Blogs most certainly will not save the republic, but they should have every first amendment protection that the conventional press enjoys, precisely because the founders assumed that more speech is always better than less speech. And that really is about the only issue there should be in any discussion when it comes to blogs.

And speaking of civil rights, where are all you brave and progressive bloggers on Blue Oregon now that the Wirth search warrant has been unsealed? Very interesting because the quoted contents of the warrant certainly raise questions. (And does anyone want to comment on the sworn statement by the officer that Wirth refused consent AND THEN explained her refusal was because the car contained items she didn't want the police to discover? )

This sounds like sarcasm: And speaking of civil rights, where are all you brave and progressive bloggers on Blue Oregon now that the Wirth search warrant has been unsealed?

I don't recall Republicans going on in detail about various aspects of the Doyle case.

But that is the whole point: as much as some would like to pretend otherwise: in a state where neither party is the majority and the balance of power often goes to "the fastest growing party is no party at all", the idea that the "conservative" side should have dropped whatever else they were doing to expound on the details of the Doyle case, or the "progressive" side should drop all they are doing to expound on the details of the Wirth case suggests to me that perhaps someone in terminally polarized. Or they don't have the sort of full life where Christmas parties, having company overnight, sending off presents, dealing with weather, job, health problems etc. are more important than following the details of a case involving a legislator who resigned.

I have better things to do with my time than to follow the ins and outs of court cases--sorry if that makes me less of a partisan than someone expected me to be.

Jeff - With respect, and I say that since your response seems to be a forthright attempt to dicuss the issue, your argument misses the point that this criminal case is political since it resulted in a duly elected official leaving office in the absence of a guilty plea or a conviction. And this is even more true because in this state prosecutors and judges are themselves elected politicians, rather than merit-based appointees. The mission statement at the top of the page bears repeating here:

What is BlueOregon? BlueOregon is a place for progressive Oregonians to gather 'round the water cooler and share news, commentary, and gossip.

The Wirth story and the implication for progressive politics ranks pretty high against that criteria. It undeniably is news (including the fact the prosecutor fought hard to keep a warrant sealed with no legal basis) that you will be seeing the media pursuing, the content of the warrant in itself bears analysis and commentary, and unfortunately it is clear that a lot of the posters here are big gossips. A key tenant of true progressive politics is an unwavering commitment to civil rights and due process, and in this case the due process questions bear a lot more examination. Particularly since this blog did breathlessly participate in the kind of small-minded gossip mongering that is a disservice to the progressive cause.

To the One True Blx: You are not clever. But since it may be that you truly didn't "get it", let me spell it out for you: The point was that any discussion which purports to talk about the relevance of blogs in our social and political culture, and doesn't talk about the 1st Amendment issues (those are politics by the way Jeff), is pretty much vacuous. In case you had not noticed, the courts have slowly been trying to establish a distinction between the rights of journalists and the rights of bloggers as not being "press". Remember that the next time one of you bloggers choose to share some "gossip" told to you by someone you care about, but that a prosecutor, perhaps politically motivated, feels might be usefully prejudicial.

LT: I can only say it is always amusing when someone who posts on political blogs parades their lack of concern about civil rights and due process as somehow being a good thing. For the record, in contrast to the Wirth case, the Republicans probably didn't say anything because there were no due process questions and Doyle pled guilty. I hate to break it to you, but compared to most of the states in this country, progressives in this state can hardly be characterized as "working hard" for progressive values. The duration of Karen Minnis' tenure relative to the demographics of her district says volumes. As does the silence of this blog on the matter of the recall effort underway against the judge who simply ruled that in her legal view Measure 37 has constitutional flaws that require review by higher courts.

Jeff - With respect, and I say that since your response seems to be a forthright attempt to dicuss the issue, your argument misses the point that this criminal case is political since it resulted in a duly elected official leaving office in the absence of a guilty plea or a conviction. And this is even more true because in this state prosecutors and judges are themselves elected politicians, rather than merit-based appointees. The mission statement at the top of the page bears repeating here:

What is BlueOregon? BlueOregon is a place for progressive Oregonians to gather 'round the water cooler and share news, commentary, and gossip.

The Wirth story and the implication for progressive politics ranks pretty high against that criteria. It undeniably is news (including the fact the prosecutor fought hard to keep a warrant sealed with no legal basis) that you will be seeing the media pursuing, the content of the warrant in itself bears analysis and commentary, and unfortunately it is clear that a lot of the posters here are big gossips. A key tenant of true progressive politics is an unwavering commitment to civil rights and due process, and in this case the due process questions bear a lot more examination. Particularly since this blog did breathlessly participate in the kind of small-minded gossip mongering that is a disservice to the progressive cause.

To the One True Blx: You are not clever. But since it may be that you truly didn't "get it", let me spell it out for you: The point was that any discussion which purports to talk about the relevance of blogs in our social and political culture, and doesn't talk about the 1st Amendment issues (those are politics by the way Jeff), is pretty much vacuous. In case you had not noticed, the courts have slowly been trying to establish a distinction between the rights of journalists and the rights of bloggers as not being "press". Remember that the next time one of you bloggers choose to share some "gossip" told to you by someone you care about, but that a prosecutor, perhaps politically motivated, feels might be usefully prejudicial.

LT: I can only say it is always amusing when someone who posts on political blogs parades their lack of concern about civil rights and due process as somehow being a good thing. For the record, in contrast to the Wirth case, the Republicans probably didn't say anything because there were no due process questions and Doyle pled guilty. I hate to break it to you, but compared to most of the states in this country, progressives in this state can hardly be characterized as "working hard" for progressive values. The duration of Karen Minnis' tenure relative to the demographics of her district says volumes. As does the silence of this blog on the matter of the recall effort underway against the judge who simply ruled that in her legal view Measure 37 has constitutional flaws that require review by higher courts.

Sorry about the double post. A problem with how my browser apparenly interacts with the website.

To Blx: Maybe the problem is that it didn't read like a joke. Something to keep in mind about the imperfection of the medium in the context of serious discussion. Or maybe your response is just attempt to recover after being called out. Hard to say.

torridjoe -

Actually, the problem was, and that I didn't make clear in my comment, that the discussion of the James recall rather quickly devolved into people rendering their opinions about legalities Measure 37 itself, and not substantive discussion about the recall itself as Sadler apparently intended when he started the thread. That seems to be in part because people value initiative and recall more than they do the other aspects of representative democracy that are harmed by small "p" populism. What I meant by "nothing to say" had nothing to do with volume, but rather substance. I do apologize though for not being clear because that is important in any discussion.

Incidentally, rather than just trying to score points, do you have anything to say about the substance of the rest of the post?

Wirth is a HUGE disappointment....who would waste their time and energy getting involved with her mess. Let her over paid mother deal with it. And no....I'm not Lars.