Virginia Miscarriage Bill Bites The Dust

[annuin]

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=80370&ran=43780

And if you hadn't seen the original bill, read this:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/6/194434/1328

And on a tangent, from that first article:

Rem Rieder, editor of American Journalism Review, said the blog phenomenon has both positive and negative consequences.

“It’s certainly a way of stimulating participation in the political process. It’s a way to get involved instantly,” he said. “But the potential for bullying and intimidation is there. You wouldn’t want people to not be putting in bills because they’d be flogged by blogs. And it can be a way of spreading misinformation or distorted information quickly. Blogs, while they are fascinating, are not journalism.”

It's not like we can depend on sound unbiased journalism from most of our (tv) media outlets...

Comments

[domesticmouse.livejournal.com]

“They’ve been fairly responsive, but they never talked to me prior to going on the Web,” he said. “I was absolutely mistreated on this.”

Keaney said she tried to contact Cosgrove but posted her report after waiting three days without a response.

Now, what was I saying about pissed media handlers? Up until now, political handlers have always screened everything less than real journo's requests for info/comment/etc, because prior to blogs everyone else couldn't do any damage. Now, anyone with a blog can do enormous PR damage in hours. Makes media handlers as redundant as running boards on cars.

And yeah, there is a lot of the entrenched powers getting wake up calls from the net. Seems people would prefer to self organise into communities than be preached at from afar. Funnily enough. :-)