Some say the rise of blogging and user-friendly content on interactive Web sites mean the end of old-school reporting. There's no doubt the blog culture has in some ways positively affected journalism, often breaking major stories when the mainstream media has looked the other way. Take the case of George Allen, who in 2006 lost a seat in the United States Senate after a video clip surfaced on Youtube.com that featured him using the term "macaca."Ah, yes. That macaca macaca again. The word that "positively affected" "journalism." Macaca. The accompanying incident, the macaca incident, the one completely manufactured by George Allen's opponents to discredit him, bought hook-line-and-sinker by a willingly gullible press, the machinations behind which will be taught in Gutter Politics 101 for many years to come as a lesson plan intended to teach young, aspiring politicians how to dupe the idiots who write for America's newspapers, the incident that will go into the history books as a shining example of how witless people can be trained to believe anything ("So the word didn't exist until Allen mouthed it and it was supposed to somehow be an ethnic slur? How could that have been, professor?"), is, to this gal, a positive.
We'll see, babe. We'll see.
