The evils of blogging

Part of our brave new world is ,of course, the internet revolution. The ability for people from around the world to communicate freely and easily has changed the world. In recent years blogging has become an important piece of our internet age. People can freely express thoughts and ideas to others without needing traditional venues such as newspapers, magazines, books, and radio and TV shows. Editors and publishers kept many thoughtful, intelligent people from publishing . Sometimes because the writing may have been inadequate, sometimes because it wasn't profitable. And sometimes because facts were incorrect, or nonsense was being presented as fact. There was at least some oversight for what was presented. Speech was free, but access to the public was limited.
Recent expansion in the number of cable channels started to change this by giving rise to "smashmouth television". This is a show format that is especially prevalent in pseudo-news shows - that is shows that present themselves as news and/or current events shows that are actually entertainment. Where unfortunately most viewers get what they consider actual news. They are simply getting aroused by obnoxious moderators. This draws more viewers and so ratings go up , thus encouraging cable stations to increase the number and obnoxiousness of these shows. The profits are far better than actual fact containing news shows. These "smashmouth" shows are more like the popular "professional wrestling" shows.
The internet and blogging has continued and accelerated the changes started by cable TV. Now everyone, myself included, can present their thoughts for the whole world to read. While it is nice to be able express opinions to the worldwide audience it is imortant to remember that the people writing these blogs may not be reliable. I would say that most people have been conditioned since childhood to place more credence to written pieces. Mainly because over the years published writers have had to display talent and intelligence or they probably would not be published. This is not to say that nonsense never got published and that hateful opinion pieces never saw the light of day, but it certainly was not common place. But bloggers are another story. They(we) may be unstable. They may be hateful. They may be fools simply parroting words they've heard elsewhere. Maybe they just want the attention (and in their mind , the glory) that can come from putting their name on a written piece. Some may have the society's best interest at heart, but not the capability or understanding of an issue that is important to them.
Now more than ever we must be careful and analytical of what we read. This great new forum of public expression is a double sided expansion of our freedom of speech. While on one side there is more access for great thoughts and world improving ideas, on the other side there is room for bad intentions and divisive, hateful plans.
So, remember when reading blogs that aren't mine - BEWARE.