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The power of the blog, in my point of view, is that it is not only a good source of personal information, and timely information, but it can be a good source of analysis. Granted, the fact that many bloggers are not journalists, does not mean they are devoid of having a brain, a mind, and intellect to come up with original ideas thoughts and opinions on issues.

So when Korina Today featured their story, Beware of The Blog, because of the Brian Gorrell story, I already knew we were in for a uninformed look of “the blog”, and a biased look of “the blog” as gleaned through the recent scandal surrounding the Brian Gorrell blog.

As has been said, people fear what they do not know, or cannot understand. And who cannot relate more to a blogger than someone who does not blog? Or at least someone who does not read blogs?

To convey that only a “respectable” blogger can be a good source of information smells of the elitist attitude of old media to cling on to their tangible newspapers. The death of the music industry was because they could not foresee the ipod, mp3, file sharing, and all that good stuff.. The death of old media will be because of the same nearsightedness.

Why do you think respectable newspapers such as The Philippine Daily Inquirer, The New York Times, and The Washington Post have all gone out of their way to create their own blog sections? Out of vanity, or out of necessity?

Beware of the blogs? Or beware of the dying old media?

And yet, we can almost understand the point of Korina Sanchez, but maybe she should have considered a more focused discussion, such as beware of the money hungry socialite? Or beware of libel in the age of new media. But because, as it seems to be the case, that blogging has come to center stage because it was the chosen medium of Brian Gorrel, maybe the attack was deserved specifically for that blog, but for the entire blogging community?

In one fell swoop, to include the entire blogging sector was to discriminate.

Because by all means, I really don’t think it was a thorough analysis of the whole “blog” situation. What more, if to use an analogy, it’s as if one African American murderer sums it up for the entire race, or if one Muslim suicide bomber should solicit a Beware of Muslim sign. Does it? You tell me.

Were this “scandal” held in The United States, it would not have gone to the extent it did, because, frankly, blogs are established. And the discussion would not have centered on blogging itself, but on elitist attitudes of the socialites of Manila.

As I have told Dean Jorge Bocobo, we are still in the infancy stages of blogging here in The Philippines. Although, many bloggers all around the world started almost the same time, it was nations such as The United States, with its population’s ability to access the internet in mass, that had them grow in leaps and bounds.

We are not only lagging with America in terms of economy, but it seems also in blogging progression.

In the last few months, in terms of blogging, media, and controversy, I think the Malu Fernandez and Brian Gorrell controversy has stolen the show for Philippine blogs. I certainly appreciate how it has given blogs some attention, but I also hate that because of this attention, media does such a crappy job of explaining it to the lay person. Sometimes it’s a double edge sword when it comes to mainstream media coverage, the story gets twisted, and at the end, the network gets all the bucks for showcasing a controversial story, and the blog gets brushed aside as being the playground of illegitimate writers.

Note this was not an attack on old media, I think the future is definitely the collaboration of old media with new media, as information can come out with such lightning speed because of “new media”, we still need the foundation of old media with its superior organization and network capacity. But remember, they are not the lords of wisdom and analysis!

tags: blogging, brian gorrell, korina sanchez