Mainstream British media discover blogs

Finally, finally! The London Times discovers bloggers!

What is...Pajamahadeen?

LAST WEEK the veteran American news anchorman Dan Rather stepped down from his post at CBS. Though the demotion was sweetened by his resuming a reporting role, few doubted the sequence of events. During the election campaign, CBS had reported allegations about President Bush's military service that turned out to be based on fraudulent documents, easily identified as such. Rather had defended the veracity of the report with an indignation touched by hubris.

The denouement was hastened by a varied group of conservative bloggers. A blog (a contraction of weblog) is a running commentary posted on the internet about whatever takes the author's interest. It is a valuable medium for those with a cause to ventilate, and who fancy that the print and broadcast media are biased against them.

["hastened"??? it would not have happened if not for the bloggers!!!...ed]

An uncomfortable Rather had denounced his blogging nemeses as "partisan political operatives", but it was left to another television executive, Jonathan Klein, to inspire a resonant image appropriate to this series on buzzwords. Surveying the bloggers, he declared: "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances (in television news) and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."

[a "resonant image appropriate"...I'd bet Rather doesn't see it that way now...ed]

Given a sense of history, Klein might have realized that a considered and satisfying sneer is infuriatingly liable to be appropriated with pride by its target. Methodism and neoconservatism both started life as terms of abuse. The guys in pajamas likewise speedily adopted for themselves the felicitous collective term "Pajamahadeen".

It is high time we took back the press.
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