Barnicle: Blogging's Not Journalism—It's Therapy

My therapist told me to take two shots at Chris Matthews and call him in the morning . . .

Mike Barnicle is back to looking down his nose at bloggers.  After Mika Brzezinski claimed on today's Morning Joe that "blogging isn't journalism," the former Boston Globe columnist declared that "95%, 99% of blogging isn't journalism. It's therapy for the blogger."

The predicate was a provocative one.  Willie Geist read from an Esquire interview of Sarah Palin in which she said that—long after the issue had been put to rest—the Anchorage Daily News called her—based on allegations in blogs—to ask whether she was indeed the mother of Trig, her youngest child.  Palin took that as evidence of continuing problems in the world of "journalism," prompting Mika and Mike to go off on us members of the pajamahadeen.

MIKE BARNICLE: Someone ought to tell Governor Palin that there's a distinction between blogging, which she refers to as "journalism," blogging --

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Is not journalism!

BARNICLE: I'd say 95%, maybe 99% of blogging is basically therapy for the blogger.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: And it's anonymous!

BARNICLE: Sitting there --

PAT BUCHANAN: -- writing letters—getting it off!

Willie Geist, a video blogger himself, put things in perspective.

WILLIE GEIST: I think she needs to remember that blogging is part of our media universe.  And there are a lot of legitimate blogs that do a lot of the dirty work.  

HAROLD FORD, JR.: She ought to think about blogging—she ought to blog.

Barnicle did get off an amusing line to end the segment.

BARNICLE: Can you imagine working for the Anchorage Daily News, or whatever it is, and calling the Governor of Alaska and saying "we got a tip here from, uh, "ToughGuy226."

Now, it's true of course that blogs and bloggers vary in credibility.  They range from the invaluable work of some military bloggers who have broken stories no MSM outlets could, all the way down to the blogosphere equivalent of, say, a network news show pushing blatantly forged documents to try to defeat a president.

Note: this isn't the first time Barnicle has brushed off bloggers.  As I noted here,  back in May he described them as 'nitwits who think they're part of the news media'