Beginning in August 2003, a month after he began his weblog, Conigliaro has covered the subject extensively, providing a reference page that manages to be both thorough and fair, though some people would consider his respect for the legal process as an attempt to pick sides:

The facts of this case are terribly sad, but they are not hard to understand. There's really nothing to be confused about, and as best I can tell, nothing's been overlooked by anyone. Terri's situation has arguably received more judicial attention, more medical attention, more executive attention, and more "due process," than any other guardianship case in history. Terri's family has had the benefit of excellent legal representation as well as the Governor's own top-notch attorneys, all of whom have scoured the case for ways to assist the effort to keep Terri's feeding tube in place.

One of the killer applications of weblogging is subject expertise like this. The report-today, gone-tomorrow mainstream media can't often cover something complicated and technical with the same depth as a dedicated expert like Conigliaro, especially television news.

The Online Journalism Awards should be opening for entry nominations again in July. If there are narrow-subject blogs out there as award-worthy as Conigliaro's, I'd love to find them.

Publishing · Journalism · Florida · 2005/03/28 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

ive been hearing lots of stuff about this terri schivo case and im quite disturbed by it.

#1 · tracie bartleman · 2005/03/30

I think one of the benefits of the net in general and blogging specifically has been the ability to debunk a lot of the nonsense that Tracie alludes to. In a typical news story there just isn't the depth to go into the history of the case. On blogs and elsewhere you can dig down and find the truth (if you want to ... many people still prefer to remain safely ignorant).

#2 · Brian Carnell · 2005/03/30

He's got a great site, and I've pointed people to it. But just having the good information "out there" isn't enough, by far. People still have to find it. And that's the flaw of blogs. It's still just too hard to find the good information, among all the ranters and hacks. It "exists", but it's akin to the expert books in the library, only a relative handful of people will in practice consult them.

To be immodest, I'm one of the world's experts on censorware (nanny "filters"). I stopped posting much material about it because the number of people reading, compared to an error-filled MSM article, was trivial.

#3 · Seth Finkelstein · 2005/03/31

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