About link journalism

I realized it is not easy to find topics that interest Boston blogger’s enough to make them write a blog about it. When I found out the goal today was to look for blogs that gave opinions about recent news, I thought that an obvious subject would be the Palin-Biden debate. What a surprise when I realized there were not that many blogs about it. Actually, I could not find 5 blogs about it. Weird, huh?
So I kept looking. Bailout? No luck either. So I looked to the obvious issues: MBTA complaints? Not that many. Another one I thought would be for sure in blogs is the Big Dig. There are many about that topic, the problem is there are no news about it, there are mostly old blogs.
So I decided to go one issue I’m sure everyone in the United States talked about: Sara Palin’s pregnant daughter. And since I’m not a sport’s fan (the Red Sox are the exception of the short amount of blogs created by people from Boston) I finally decided to go for it, even though incredibly there are not that many blogs about that issue either.
In Prof. Dan Kennedy’s blog Media Nation (Technorati authority: 178) , there is a statement about John Marshalls argument regarding the roll of Sara Palin’s daughter in the McCains campaign.
While McCain Campaign argues that children of candidates should not “become topics of the campaigns debate”, Mccain campaign is the one that exploits Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, says John Marshall.
Prof. Dan Kennedy says it is not as black and white as Marshall is saying, because the media is also playing an important role in going over this information and digging in it as much as possible.
I believe this was a great opportunity for the press to make of this election an interesting, thus profitable one for them: it was almost boring until the “pregnancy” was announced and in the future there is no doubt this event will be one of the most remembered things in this election. I really don't know how the McCain campaign also promoted this, so I rather not express an opinion about it.

Another blog I found had an interesting view about this issue to debate and post comments in is BunkoSquad, Building yesterday's tomorrow, today (Technorati authority: 11). It is stated there that Bristol Palin never had a choice to not have her baby, since her mother (being an official figure in the government) would have never allowed her to make another choice. It also states that to understand Sara Palin's "supposedly admiration" for her daughter’s decision (considering according the blog that she never made the decision herself) one has to be from the right wing. My question is, if a person wants to have an abortion, isn't that private information in United States? Couldn't she go through it without everybody finding out about it three months ago (before Sara Palin was elected as vice president candidate) or is that impossible? Because in that case, I think it was her choice, probably with her parents support. I just can't imagine in the 21st century having your mother forbid you to make a decision like that, even if she is Sara Palin. And besides, who are we to say that we know what Sara Palin orders her daughter to do? And what does that have to do with being from the right wing? Even though I'm a non partisan person, I think this blog is too biased towards the left wing, and has no argument to sustain anything in it.

I found another post with interesting arguments but still easy to contradict in Cheapthrills (Technorati authority: 61) also posted in Universalhub (Technorati authority:296) In the blog, two hypothetical situations are presented: seven years from now Barak Obama’s daughter Malia is pregnant an unwed. The comment in the blog is that there is no way she would be labeled as a courageous young woman with strong family values like Palin’s daughter is labeled nowadays by some people. It also says that evangelicals would not rally behind her as they do behind Sara Palin.

I assume that the first comparison is referred to the fact that Obama’s daughter is African American, and that would make a difference in the context and the acceptance she’ll get. I don’t think so. The real issue here is that Bristol is Sara Palin’s daughter; it is obvious that people that support her and McCain will say this is the best thing that could had ever happen. On the other hand the fact that she has the evangelical’s support is because she is from the Pentecostal church which is also part of their religious movement. Would Obama’s daughter receive the same support is she was from their religion? I’m sure she would. Let’s look at big picture here and not try to see things where there aren’t.