CBS 'Co-Opts the Tactics of Its Enemies'

David Schatsky of Jupiter Research wrote an article about CBS using the tactics of bloggers for its new site, Public Eye. Jupiter Research is a firm that analyzes blogs and "provides unbiased research, analysis and advice, backed by proprietary data, to help companies profit from the impact of the Internet and emerging consumer technologies on their business."

"Mainstream media outlets have come under assault by bloggers who have nimbly exploited the characteristics of the Internet to become part of a dynamic, decentralized information system featuring low cost, rapid dissemination, and a kind of Darwinian evolution where 'fitness' is determined by cross linking and traffic. It's these bloggers (and others) who have painted the media as beholden to advertisers and bogged down by a calcified bureaucracy."

No mention of bias.

Schatsky notes a "popularly cited exhibit," the "humbling of CBS News over the story about Bush's National Guard service by bloggers practicing guerrilla 'journalism.'"

The situation, according to the piece, is reminiscent of Vietnam, where a "nimble, agile, unconventional adversary" was able to defeat a superpower.

Public Eye is the media "groping for a way forward by experimenting with this medium and adopting and learning from the tactics of its competitors and enemies and hopefully, avoiding the fate that awaits the 'pitiful, helpless giant.'"