And they say bloggers need oversight

I heard another yippee media figure on a talking head show last night (O'Reilly's) denigrating bloggers as needing some sort of "oversight."

It is just one rant of many in the media, and has been covered in enough blogs in enough detail that I don't need to discuss it here, other than to make one comment: bloggers are limited by the same legal checks and balances that affect the professional media. Indeed, it can be argued that since individual bloggers do not have the support of corporate conglomerations and their significant legal resources, that the professional media can get away with pushing the envelope further than bloggers.

But that envelope only stretches so far. As this case suggests, all media are subject to the limitations of libel and slander law, and if recent history is to be observed, the blogosphere, it can be argued, does the better job of staying within the ethical and legal constraints that big journalism claims to follow.

As I sit here marveling at how the print media forged their circulation numbers as well as their stories, and wait for results of the CBS Rathergate investigation, I think that perhaps Mr. O'Reilly, recently in his own bit of legal hot water for the alleged suggestive sexual abuse of a falafel, and also playing a role in the libel case cited above, should keep his mouth shut on media ethics until his own house is in order.