Finding Fault

“Journalism versus Blogging” is a false dichotomy that no competent writer would make. And that makes this an ironic but apt title for a discussion of a slightly different comparison: competent journalism versus mindless blogging.

A blogger with a publishing background asked a silly question¹ a couple of years ago. And he answered it with a yes.

The question was: Can blogs do journalism?

This question is a silly one not just because a blog just sits there doing nothing, while it’s bloggers that do the work. In this case, the author clarified that he wasn’t referring just to the content management system behind a blog, but also to the people writing for the blog.

The question is a silly one also because answers to questions of the type “can x do y” rarely give us much insight. With some exceptions not relevant here, we generally care more about what somebody usually does, not about what somebody can ever do.

Can Google ever give you useful search results? Does Google usually give you useful search results?

Can The Economist ever publish an informative article? Does The Economist usually publish informative articles?

These are very different types of questions.

So Finding Fault asks: Do blogs—or bloggers—usually do journalism?

If by journalism you mean the type of writing that uses facts and reasoning to yield a useful and reliable conclusion, then we think the answer unfortunately is no.

In the absence of good statistics, let’s just consider some anecdotal evidence.

We will present a brief example first, and then a longer one.

A Writer with whom we are about to find fault goes on and on about how he could not do his work over an iPhone.²

It’s well-known that the iPhone does not allow multitasking. The Writer complains about lack of multitasking, as if it’s news to anyone.³

It’s equally well-known that the iPhone has no keyboard⁴. The Writer complains about the lack of one, as if it’s news to anyone.

The iPhone apparently doesn’t have a very good client for Google Mail. The Writer complains about it. The iPhone provides notifications for various events such as calendar events and instant messages, and the Writer complains about these.

And he asks: “We don’t work like this on our computers—why does Apple think we want to work like this on our phones?” Say what? What makes anybody think that Apple thinks that? Apple makes laptop computers too, for those who need one.

What makes the whole thing even more mindless is that just a few months ago, the same Writer reviewed a device⁵ that has all the features that he is complaining about not having. That device, a tiny netbook that would fit on his palm and in his outer jacket pocket, augmented with tethering to a suitable mobile phone or even his iPhone—which any committed iPhone user can accomplish with only a little effort—would have let him do his work as he wanted to. And yet, in that previous review, the Writer emphatically rejected that device without, so far as we can tell, even trying it out. All this, to us, clearly falls into the mindless blogging category. Complain about something. The complain about something else because it’s not enough like the previous thing that you complained about.

Finding Fault would have been more impressed if the Writer had evaluated the tiny netbook more carefully and then, while complaining about the iPhone, referred back to the tiny netbook and explained why that type of device would not have met his needs either.

Proceeding now to our longer example of mindless blogging, let’s get some background knowledge first.

Lohr and Helft in The New York Times⁶ discuss Google’s antitrust risk:

Google’s power is a cause of worry in many industries—media, advertising, telecommunications and software. Yet being large, successful and ambitious is not an antitrust violation. “You’ve got to be big, and you have to be bad,” observed Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor at Howard University. “You have to be both.”

In the Microsoft case, the software giant’s monopoly in personal computer operating systems was not an antitrust problem. It was its corporate actions, including using contracts and bullying tactics to stifle competition, that broke the law, the federal courts ruled. Such strong-arm practices, legal experts say, have not been part of the Google story.

It’s not the monopoly, it’s how you achieve the monopoly.

On now to our longer example of mindless blogging.

A Writer complains⁷ in an article entitled “Google Antitrust Case Misses the Point” as follows: “The issue with whether Google is or is not a monopoly isn’t merely its search dominance: It’s Google’s ability to control online advertising and, increasingly, what we read or don’t read.”

The Writer misinterprets the target of his own link. His “Google is or is not a monopoly” clause fake-links⁸ to an article⁹ entitled “Reports: DOJ Turns up the Heat on Google’s Book Deal” about a settlement between Google and the plaintiffs suing Google. The settlement will effectively give Google a pricing monopoly over copyrighted works whose owners cannot be located. This settlement involves multiple parties making an agreement that creates a monopoly—a likely antitrust violation. Hence the U.S. Department of Justice has been investigating the situation.

What does the Writer do with this? Well, he writes: “The issue with whether Google is or is not a monopoly isn’t merely its search dominance:…”, thus implying that the article to which he linked is about Google’s search dominance. But the article to which he links really refers to an agreement, not so much about causing search dominance, as about giving Google a type of monopoly over copyright.¹⁰ Google already has search dominance and the settlement doesn’t increase Google’s search share.¹¹ After the settlement, Google will be able to sell access to copies of some copyrighted works with little or no risk in a way that nobody else will. This confusion between search and access to copyrighted works is the Writer’s first mistake.

The Writer’s second mistake is to confuse between two types of antitrust situations. There is the type that involves multiple parties making an agreement that might create a monopoly. Then there is the type that involves a single party creating a monopoly. Wikipedia has an informative article¹² in which we find:

A distinction between single-firm and multi-firm conduct is fundamental to the structure of U.S. antitrust law, which, as noted antitrust scholar Phillip Areeda has pointed out, “contains a ‘basic distinction between concerted and independent action.’”

Those who trust neither this Wikipedia entry nor the references it cites could look up the Antitrust page¹³ provided by Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute and then follow numerous links to get the same information. In referring to an agreement between multiple parties, and then complaining about the monopoly of a single party, the Writer shows no awareness that antitrust rules might apply differently to the two types of situations. If multiple parties act together, this can violate antitrust law even if nobody does anything “bad” and no harm to competition occurs.¹⁴ But a single party that attains a monopoly doesn’t violate antitrust law unless that it does something bad.

Accusing an article about the DOJ’s actions, or accusing the DOJ itself if that’s what the Writer intended, of missing the point because the DOJ is enforcing the law as it stands, makes no sense to us. We think the Writer is the one missing the point.

The third and final error the Writer makes is a subtle one. He links to an article about the application of antitrust law and, in this case, about a settlement that brings the lawsuit to an end, and about the attention the US Department of Justice is paying to this because the settlement involves multiple parties making an agreement that may lead to a monopoly. Then, without ever making it clear, he switches to an argument based purely on morality and not at all on law. For there is no antitrust violation when a single party attains a monopoly—like Cisco¹⁵ had for many years—without using wrongful means. Going back to the New York Times article, and adding badly-needed emphasis: “You’ve got to be big, and you have to be bad”. Any argument that complains solely about Google being big, as the Writer’s does, without ever mentioning badness, must be a purely moral one, as it has no basis in antitrust law.

If you are going to make an argument based purely on a moral code—your moral code—that has no connection with the applicable law, then Finding Fault suggests that you not begin by linking to an example of the application of the law. It muddies up the situation.

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