Tuesday, October 25: Finally, a blogger gets invited to speak on a panel about the Duke case. Go show KC Johnson your support.
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I’ve done a lot of blogging about the Duke case, but I’ve got nothing on bloggers like KC Johnson, who started a blog dedicated to the case, John in Carolina (fact-checks N.C. newspapers reporting on the case), Lie Stoppers, The Johnsville News, and Crystal Mess. Because I cover a wider variety of political topics, I haven’t gone as in depth as the others.
And they’re on top of things.
Last week there was a panel discussion about the case. Invitees were journalists, and at the time it didn’t occur to me to ask why “Duke bloggers” weren’t invited to join the panel. I’m asking now. I’ve been in touch with Robert Bliwise, editor of Duke Magazine, over the past few weeks. I assume he organized the panel, and I asked him why he didn’t invite bloggers. I’ll post his response if I get one.
As a blogger, I’m biased. As journalists talk about how “unedited” and “unvetted” bloggers are, they often do the same things they accuse us of doing. At least bloggers are open about their biases, whereas journalists hide behind the cover of “objectivity.”
I think left-leaning media were motivated to a greater extent by the man-bites-dog aspect of the “rape” story. I suspect that liberal journalists who wrote slanted stories didn’t really believe the lacrosse players raped the stripper-accuser. But it was good copy.
Like the Rathergate story, this one is moving too fast for me. So I’ll do what I think I’m better at doing: providing round-up coverage and cranking out a column or two about the blog swarm.
Journalist Jon Ham attended the Duke-and-the-media panel and blogged about it.
Unrelated Update (7:00 p.m.): I just got some cool news I can’t blog about yet. (I know it’s not nice to tease, but the girl can’t help it.) I’ll fill you in later. 
