kudos to carlos conde

for one who seemed to be too smart to get caught in the golf war, dean jorge bocobo seems too kind naman now to the mom blogger who has a problem with credibility, as she herself admitted on anc’s media in focus.

She really scored a bullseye for the Bloggers and outshined veteran journalists Carlos Conde (International Herald Tribune) and Danilo Arao (Bulatlat) when she pointed out that it is the very active comment threads that come with real blogs, as well as the commentaries of other bloggers, that provide check and balance on what bloggers report or opine. Indeed, as a blogger myself, I am grateful when my Comment Thread participants point out blatant errors in my posts. I gladly acknowledge them.

and what’s this about “very active comment threads that come with real blogs”?   so blogs that don’t have very active comment threads are not “real” blogs?   so this, mine, is not a “real” blog?   oh pleasssse!   comments are only that, comments.   as long as there is no erratum or formal acknowledgement of error by the blogger, where is the check and balance?    where is the check and balance when a blogger feels free to blog one thing now and the complete opposite tomorrow without a by-your-leave, or so it is alleged.

to his credit, carlos conde is the only blogger i’ve read who had the grace to follow up his anti-pangandaman post with serious self-examination and a rueful apology for allowing himself to be swept up by bambee’s blog.

As a journalist, I should have known better.

In itself, the brawl at the Valley Golf was a fascinating story, with an even fascinating backstory from each side: a family of powerful politicians from a region known for their goons and guns versus a family of golfers trying to make it big in golf.

I felt strongly about what had happened (at least according to Bambee) but instead of investigating the incident and get to the truth of it, as any journalist ought to do and as I have done in other stories in the past, I put on my other hat and merely blogged about it.

Did I attempt to get the side of the Pangandamans? I did not. Did I investigate whether what Bambee dela Paz wrote was accurate or truthful? I did not. My outrage had been vented, so why bother? It was so goddamn easy.

however i disagree that it was a mistake to blog about it just because all the facts were not in.   one could have blogged about it without taking bambee’s side right off.   one could have first wondered aloud about the truth of the story, the possibility of bias, and even given the pangandamans the benefit of the doubt, why not.

as for all the blogging going on these days about blogging and why we blog, ang masasabi ko lang ay:  i love blogging because it’s a liberating kind of writing. i’d been blogging barely a month back in 2007 when i wrote this:

i’ve written for all kinds of media – print, television, stage, [docu] film – and i find that the happiest kind of writing, i mean, the kind of writing i like best is this, writing for cyberspace, to be read by many or just family and friends, it doesn’t matter, what matters is that i’m free to say anything about anything, and it’s posted out there for cybereternity, what a great way of passing on mind stuff to my kids, and i can write it in any style and length i please, puwedeng no caps, use the same word twice, thrice in the same sentence, the same paragraph, and take as long as i like before bothering with a period, even smile or frown, scream or swear, in english or tagalog, taglish or gayspeak, and no censor, editor, director or producer to mess it up.   sarap!

Comments

  1. djb

    Angela,
    That real blogs have active comment threads is to distinugish from online columns published by PDI for example, which even if they are online are not “real” blogs because they do not allow for interactive commenting. They have not evolved a comment thread and you still have to write a “letter to the editor.”

    The fact that I am commenting on your blog is only possible because you have “activated” your comment thread.

    That isn’t true for carlos conde’s article in the newspaper, even if he himself has a blog.

    If you had read the rest of the comment thread this point might’ve occurred to you.

    Now it is true lots of blogs don’t get a lot of actual comments. That is irrelevant to the point that Carlos Conde and Co. in the Main Stream are afraid of interactivity, or against it for some reason as he did try to explain.

    But I will not get shot in the back by a bunch of journalists whose profession is not exactly much better than worst of the blogosphere.

    January 18, 2009 at 5:18 pm
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  2. angela

    hey djb ;) i did read the comment thread, sorry i missed that. but it doesn’t change my point that bloggers should practise, or at least try for, due diligence naman, lalo na pag tungkol sa political or national affairs, just because interactivity is not always good enough or present enough to serve as check-and-balance.

    otherwise you’re preaching to the choir re mainstream media. and i’m rooting for you in the wordwar ;)

    January 18, 2009 at 7:45 pm
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  3. caloy conde

    DJB said: “That is irrelevant to the point that Carlos Conde and Co. in the Main Stream are afraid of interactivity, or against it for some reason as he did try to explain.”

    DJB, for somebody who professes to be the alternative, you suck at it. worse, you’ve been twisting the things that i have publicly said.

    where, may i ask, did you get the idea that i am afraid of interactivity or even against it? i hate to fling my credentials at your face but i was already blogging probably way before you know what URL stands for and way before the word blog was invented. i was already involved in the publication of web-based news organizations way before you probably realized that blogging is cool. i work for news organizations whose websites have some of the best interactivity and new media content in the world. i recently signed on as a correspondent for a web-only news organization specializing in international news and heavy on multimedia and interactivity.

    and you? you blog. no, i take that back, because i, too, blog and i believe that blogging is a wonderful technology that can do the world a lot of good. i take that back. you, djb, don’t blog. you heckle. and if your bloviations are the stuff that we should replace journalism with, good luck to us all.

    January 18, 2009 at 7:59 pm
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  9. reyna elena

    @buraot,

    hehehe leche! magkasunod pa tayo! yeah! i was checking the links and i was right after all hahaha, DJB the pretentious guy AKA educated sa US wala naman palang maibalandrang kalidad hahaha

    thanks for this entry angela! it helps me understand the mental line capacity of DJB hehehe

    April 17, 2009 at 9:38 pm
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