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Let’s talk a little about taking a joke too far.

I’ve been sitting here with the window to the Wonkette post in question on my computer for days, trying to decide how I would tackle the issue.  Unfortunately, it looks like I waited too long, as when I went back to it, the post had been taken down.

Pretty strong language, huh?

The story, complete with photoshopped graphics, was a mock tribute to Sarah Palin’s son Trig on his third birthday.  Trig has Down Syndrome, and Wonkette writer Jack Stuef spent much of his time capitalizing it, calling him the “smartest member of his family,” as well as blaming his mother’s campaigning for his condition.  He also speculated on the actual mother of Trig, and included a graphic of him with an animated stripper.

Bloggers from both sides of the political spectrum took to the forums.  Right-wingers NewsBusters asked, “What has become of today’s liberalism that makes it acceptable to attack the mentally handicapped if they or their parents are conservatives?” Mediaite declared they would no longer link to the former allies.  Eventually the pressure caused Stuef to apologize and the editor to take the entry down, but Wonkette still seemts to support the article on its Twitter feed.

Wonkette needs to learn when enough is enough.  Sarah Palin’s not great.  She may even, as Stuef claims, take advantage of her son’s condition for the positive publicity.  However, to post such a thoughtless article on the kid’s third birthday is callous and, well, despicable.  Crosses the line.

I found this article on the Fox News website, and thought it was interesting.  Bloggers can influence purchases more than celebrities?  Millions upon millions of dollars are spent each year to get celebrity endorsements of products, and yet anyone with a free WordPress account (like mine) can change the tides of purchasing trends (stay tuned for my next post about my favorite things, once I can find the backers).

Due to the source, I decided to do a little factchecking, and found the PDF presentation of the study referenced, the 2011 Social Media Matters Study done by Blogher, through Ketchum.  Here’s what I found.

88% of active blog readers (53% of the general US population) polled throughout the United States said they trusted information provided by bloggers, and 53% (24% of the general US population) claimed that they had made a purchase based off a blogger’s recommendation.

That’s got to be a higher success rate than commercials with Derek Jeter or Tiger Woods.

In fact, when asked what advertising formats were the most effective, 20% of those polled said blog recommenadations, while celeb endorsements clocked in at 13%

But what is perhaps MOST interesting is the reason why we trust bloggers so much:

Pretty reminiscent of our most recent class, talking about the value of transparency in the news, huh? Perhaps advertisers should take note that just as in journalism, honesty is the best policy, and the Internet Everyman is gaining ground.

So, we all know the story of the Buffalo Beast editor who revealed the true colors of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker by impersonating David Koch in a phone call.  The story went nationwide, and Ian Murphy, the blogger in question, was given folk-hero status by journalists, union supporters, and generally anyone who isn’t too crazy about the practices of the Kock Brothers (those numbers are thankfully growing and growing).

Murphy has decided to use his notoriety for something other than blogging (although he continues to maintain the Beast).  He’s running for Congress, specifically running for the seat that Representative Chris Lee vacated in disgrace last February.  He’s right there, under the Green Party ticket.  He even has his own website, MurphyCanHasCongress.com.  His slogan, a dig at the man who created the political job opening.  “Laid back dude seeks votes, maybe more.”

While the website is littered with jokes-“I have about $200 in the bank (not bragging)“- he insists that his congressional run is as serious as his Republican rival’s, regularly updating his blog to reflect his opinion on the issues.

Take a look at one of his campaign videos.  Would you vote for this guy?  I might.  I might not, but I might.

Here’s a fun, interesting blog that doubles as a casual forum for designers across the world.

Self-branded as “Europe’s trendy ezine,” Designboom updates several times a day highlighting different designers, artists, and architects.  They also occasionally land interviews with their subjects. Check out their most recent one, a January interview with artist and designer Marti Guixe.

While the English (I assume there’s some translation involved) leaves something to be desired, the content is always impeccable.  They always find the most interesting ideas, the how-did-they-come-up-with-that designs.  Often the designs they showcase are eco-friendly, perhaps enlightening consumers to a better alternative.  Although for the most part, the designs are in prototype form at the time of posting.

It’s really just a blog for ideas, and elegant presentation of those ideas.

(so cool, right?  Going down, it’s a lava flow, but going up, it’s a tsunami wave)

As you know, I participated in the National Conference for Undergraduate Research with took over our campus the last three days.  Preparing for the darned thing took over my life for far longer.  I presented two papers, and one of them I feel is very relevant to this class and I’d love to share the gist of it with you.

Mexico’s mainstream media has been in jeopardy ever since the drug war began in late 2006.  Both government officials and drug trafficking organizations would pay journalists to downplay drug activity (politicians trying to keep the illusion that they’re doing their jobs, cartels wanting to keep their business going without interruption).

However, since mid-2010, violence has been escalating.  Drug traffickers no longer wish to pay, offering journalists the option of cooperation or death.  Journalists have to censor themselves in order to make sure their families’ safety, a phenomenon Tracy Wilkinson calls “narco censorship.” The newsroom of Nuevo Laredo was bombed.  Four journalists were kidnapped and released in exchange for negative coverage of a rival organization.  It is this violence that led El Diario de Juarez to run a heartbreaking full-page, front-page editorial called, “What Do You Want From Us?” after the murder of one of their photographers.

In Mexico, it is social and independent media that has come to the rescue in this dark age.  23.57 million Mexicans have internet access, a population that is much more concentrated in northern cities than anywhere else, where the violence is. Thanks to newfound access, new blogs and other sources of independent, citizen journalism have cropped up in the place of the broken mainstream system.

El Blog del Narco posts all the content they receive anonymously.  All of it.  Some of the content seems to come from within cartels, others from military sources, and still more from frustrated and frightened citizens.  At just a year old, it receives 4 million hits each week and daily posts can range in the hundreds.

La Parada Digital is another source.  While it also publishes anonymously, it is a little more locally focused on the state of Chihuahua and it appears to have a staff which writes and produces its content.

By reading these blogs, and using Twitter to get up to the minute information on what areas are safe, some Mexicans have the ability to replace mainstream media entirely with a more accurate, anonymous, and safe system, made possible by the Internet.

(Sorry this post is so long!  It’s hard to summarize 3000 words! If you’d like to see the whole paper, you can download it here.)