EDITORIAL: Blogging our way toward oblivion

People who rely on bloggers for their news get what they pay for.

These sources generally are free — and worth every penny.

Yes, this is a commentary on the successful defamation case against blogger Summer Bushnell, but the blame goes further. 

On the Facebook blog she calls The Bushnell Report, Bushnell accused a local drag performer of exposing his genitals during a family-friendly event in Coeur d’Alene City Park. And she posted a doctored image to back up her words.

Bushnell’s lawyer, Colton Boyles, claimed Bushnell believed that what she had posted was absolutely true. He argued that as a “journalist,” she deserved First Amendment protections that courts typically extend to professional journalists.

But Bushnell torpedoed her attorney — or did he torpedo himself? — by admitting on the trial’s second day that she knew what she’d posted was false. 

The relevance of knowing whether or not something is false is that libel and defamation laws give leeway to journalists who print something false but believed to be true at the time of publication. When someone knowingly publishes something false that's provably harmful, it’s an invitation to the woodshed.

The question of Bushnell’s journalistic bonafides can’t be asserted one way or another. While some people still think of journalists as people trained in their craft to objectively report on newsworthy events, the definition has grown murkier since the advent of the internet. No less an authority than Merriam-Webster offers “a writer or editor for a news medium” as well as “a writer who aims at a mass audience” as definitions for a journalist.

If Bushnell does not meet the first standard, she almost certainly does the second. 

But here’s the thing: While she clearly harmed the drag performer, was found guilty of defamation and tagged with a judgment over $1.1 million, Bushnell is only part of the problem. Without an audience, her bullets would find no targets, so some culpability lands on the plates of those who eagerly eat what she’s serving. 

The deeper problem is that the target audience of Bushnell and bloggers like her believe what they read and see because they want to believe it — not because the source is credible. 

Actual news journalists don't have it easy these days, trying to get both sides of a story — something Bushnell admitted she does not do — and being clear about what’s published, whether it’s objective reporting, opinion or analysis.

It’s also never been more challenging for news consumers, with professionalism and objectivity rare sweet notes amid the growing cacophony of digital bullhorns blaring into echo chambers for power and profit. 

You don’t need to be FoxNews.com or MSNBC.com, either. A $50 smartphone can disseminate information farther and faster than multi-million dollar printing presses and broadcast TV stations, meaning almost anyone can be a “journalist” aiming at a mass audience.

With a bow to exceptional nonprofit journalism blossoming in the U.S., here’s a respectful suggestion for social media “news” consumers:

If access is free, skeptical you should be.