“To see beyond their own little world and get a sense of what’s really going on, journalists and readers need to get out of their pajamas,” says George Packer in the upcoming issue of Mother Jones magazine.
First, a confession: I hate blogs. I’m also addicted to them. Hours dissolve into nothing when I suit up and dematerialize into the political blogosphere … beaming myself outward along rays of pixelated light to dozens of satellites … until I’m light-years from the point of departure and can rescue myself only by summoning the will to disconnect … landing with a jolt in front of my computer. Before long, though, I’ll venture forth again to see what’s new out there — because the blogosphere changes from instant to instant.
As Packer says, “blogs are addictive — that is, both pleasurable and destructive: They’re so easy to consume, and so endlessly available.”
Blogs are all about unvarnished opinion, yours and mine and everyone else’s, a manifestation of the old art of political pamphleteering — offering a constellation of opinion.
In an age when the corporate media’s idea of journalism is meant to lead us to the belief that journalism is all about objective reporting, we know that self-serving suggestion to be nothing more than yet another corporate lie we’re told, designed to keep us misinformed and alienated from political action that would better the conditions of our lives.
Long live blogging. Keep yourself informed: click on a blog to your right.
