Just don’t let it happen again
: NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin issues an impressive apology for dismissing blogs:
Finally, an apology: In an e-mail to a listener, I dismissed those people who criticize NPR based on information they get from blogs. That e-mail to Professor Ann Little (to whom I apologized) was posted on one of those blogs, www.mediawhoresonline.com. The response from people who read this and other blogs was pretty impressive.
While the tone from some who wrote was rough, I get the point.
Blogs are, as I now appreciate, as legitimate a method of communicating information and opinion as traditional media. I was wrong to suggest that much of political blogging is “astroturfing” … Indeed, a recent Pew poll points out that an increasing number of Americans are getting their information from non-traditional sources. That fact has now been made abundantly clear to me.
You were right. I was wrong.
In future, I will pay closer attention to those who feel inclined to contact me, regardless of where they get their information. Political life in the United States is changing and so, it seems, should be how and where political journalism chooses its information.
Here are the letters that changed his mind.
[via Terry Heaton]
