Bloggers, the Fifth Estate

In theory, each of the three branches of the Federal Government hold a check and/or balance on the other two. The executive branch is like a rock, the judiciary like paper and the Congress like scissors. But since the near-election of George Bush as President, the executive branch has expanded to the size of a boulder, impossible for the judiciary to cover or the GOP-controlled Congress to cut.

For example, despite a non-stop stream of executive branch abuses, scandals and unprecedented constitutional re-interpretations, nothing of substance has been done by Congress to mitigate the President’s power grab or hold his team accountable for any number of grotesque strategic blunders. In short, Republican office-holders remain absolutely terrified of losing their newfound power. Incapable of providing meaningful oversight, they are willing to let Dick Cheney and other mean-spirited Bush thugs reinterpret the entire political dynamic, even when it forces them to support positions in direct opposition to their values--policies they secretly despise.

Enter the fourth estate. In theory the final check and balance on political power should be the media. Yet many huge stories in the past five years have been altogether avoided by televised media and given insignificant coverage by print media. The case for invading Iraq tops the list. Rather than question the President’s so-called-facts and risk being labeled unpatriotic (by the very same “fact” creators), the media meekly accepted administration statements. And on the rare occasions when media members criticized, GOP operatives bullied and smeared until the criticism went away.

Recently, the media shied away from the issue of global warming, focusing instead on Al Gore’s potential political comeback rather than his rock-solid data showing our planet is in deep trouble. This should be the biggest story in our lifetimes, but it barely hits the media radar. Why?

A mountain of evidence has been compiled, by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others, demonstrating vast and unexplainable 2004 voting irregularities in Ohio favoring the Republican ticket. If true, it should be the second biggest story of a lifetime, but the mainstream media remain unwilling to cover any story requiring complex analysis or risking political upheaval. Why?

Republicans slipped an item into a recent bill authorizing bases in Iraq staffed by at least fifty-thousand soldiers for at least the next ten years. Where is the story in the media? So much for standing down while the Iraqis stand up.

Anyone still puzzled by the explosive growth of the blogosphere should go back to kindergarten and start over. It has become exceedingly clear that blogs are a reflexive attempt by citizens to highlight important issues and draw conclusions about information that mainstream media are too cowed or frightened to touch.

In a recent NY Times column “Bloggers Double Down,” Maureen Dowd wonders whether bloggers are just media outsiders hoping for a seat inside. But she fails to address the core of their movement. Bloggers dream of restoring the mainstream media to what it used to be: a effort to find facts and draw conclusions, wherever that may lead. Many bloggers have neither the desire nor the training to be journalists, but they can draw conclusions as well as any editorialist. And, thanks to the internet, they have access to the same information as any newsroom.

When the mainstream media refuses to call intentional dishonesty “a lie,” something stinks. When huge stories are ignored because they might be controversial, depressing or turn off corporate sponsors, something is rotten at the core of the media enterprise. When a story always has two sides, as if facts are always purely subjective, something vital has been lost.

Blogs fill the interpretive void left by an inept, scared, profit-focused media. And given the incompetence of the Bush Administration, the failures of congressional oversight and ever-expanding Republican party scandals, bloggers are becoming an essential fifth estate.