Blogs are quickly achieving the status that mass media has been unable to maintain, as provider of a more raw, more accurate, less biased version on the truth. These people don’t speak for a corporation or politician, but themselves. While the mass media is rightfully feeling threatened by this upstart in their monopolized “marketplace of ideas,” the bloggers are gaining steam with the recent events concerning Dan Rather, Jeff Gannon, and Eason Jordan. They have proved that the media can no longer decide on its own what is and isn’t reported to the public. Now, with the internet, everyone can know everything, and report on it too.

Ultimatly, the idea of a free marketplace is what’s behind democracy. In news, the idea is the same, but the reality is not. While anyone, particularly in the United States, can have their own newspaper or tv station, cost keeps just anyone from having it. This has allowed the marketplace to develop into one voice, which is appropreatly labled a singular term- mass media. The advent of blogs, however, has challenged this monopoly. As with Eason Jordan’s case, the mass media’s decision not to report on something no longer assures the public won’t know. The bloggers were able to cover the story themselves, and in the end cause just as big of a rukus. Stephen Baker, in his article here, discusses the power of blogs and demonstrates the critical view mass media casts them in. Despite the media’s perception of blogs, it is easy to see the benifits of having two opposing forces in a market. Competition makes its competitors stronger and exposes weaknesses. If nothing else, the mass media could use a reality check. It is obvious that blogs aren’t going to be leaving any time soon, however. Just two days ago, the word “blog” was used for the first time on the Senate Floor by Senator John Cornyn from Texas in regards to a more open government.

While many consider blogs to be too open or reckless, ultimatly a balance is maintained by the both sides. After all, while constantly shifting, chaos is ultimatly stable. Eventually, maybe joint news reports from bloggers and mass media will be as “fair and balances” as Fox News claims to be.

The Syrian media also produces incitement, including a series praising terrorists now being presented during the Ramadan month. Such programs encourage Palestinian children to hate Israelis and take part in the violence. Children are urged by television advertisements to “drop your toys and take up arms,” while Palestinian educational television programming glorifies martyrdom in the struggle against Israel. The latest kid’s music video, played at least 10 times last week on Palestinian TV has the following chorus:
You will not be saved, Oh Zionist, You are my target.
I will willingly fall as a Martyr. Oh young ones, God is Great!

This quote is taken from a statement by Mr. Chaim Shacham, representative of Israel in the United Nations, on 27 October 2004, regarding the child casualties in terrorist attacks against Israel.

Just one more reason the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians needs to be resolved.

In the wake of Eason Jordan’s resignation at CNN, have bloggers become a new and fearless source of fact-checking and truth-telling? Or are they, in the poke-’em-in-the-eye phrase of Steve Lovelady of Columbia Journalism Review, “salivating morons” who comprise a “lynch mob”?

See what Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post thinks
here.

Upcoming this weekend:

President Bush said Wednesday that the elections this weekend in Iraq would be “a grand moment in Iraqi history” that he described as part of a global march toward freedom. Yet he acknowledged that Iraqis themselves had not yet taken the initiative in defending their country and might doubt Washington’s will to prevail against the insurgency.

Unfortunatly, I don’t think that it will be a “grand moment in Iraqi history.” Iraqis, like most people in the Middle East, lack the same national identity that we take for granted. They identify themselves by religion and family- and in not the same ways we do. This is an area of the world who’s boarders were drawn by European leaders for economic reasons much like Africa. To have a true national identity is to share a similar background and history with your other countrymen, not be thrown together by an outside power and told to take care of yourselves. I believe that as soon as the outside power, which is now the United States Armed Forces, leaves, Iraq will become a vaccum that must be filled. I just hope that the next power to fill Iraq doesn’t turn it into the Iran for the 21st century.
Here’s the link for full story.

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Israel Meets With Palestinians on Abbas Plan to End Attacks
In a gesture that has been long needed yet rarely recieved, the Palestinians put forth a plan to halt attacks in the Gaza stip and rekindle the hope of peace in Israel Wednesday night.

At the request of the Palestinians, security officials from the two sides met Wednesday night at Erez Crossing, on Gaza’s northern border. The Palestinians presented a plan, approved by their new president, Mahmoud Abbas, calling for placing hundreds of Palestinian troops in northern Gaza with the intention of halting rocket fire and other attacks by armed Palestinian factions.

While creating peace in the state of Israel is possibly the most difficult goal to achieve in the Middle East, it is also widely accepted as the most important and encompassing of all. Terrorist regularly justify their actions by refering to the conflict in the area and the Muslim street has a general resentment for countries who support the Jewish state.