In a stark example of the difference between a blogger and a traditional journalist, 
Red County/OC Blog’s Jubal (pictured) yesterday upped the ante in the case of Hoa Van Tran‘s financial disclosure, and filed a formal complaint with the Orange County District Attorney alleging violation of campaign laws.
In a revealing investigative post yesterday morning here, TheLiberalOC.com’s Chris Prevatt uncovered a host of payments made by the Hoa Van Tran campaign but it failed to report in its financial disclosure covering the period January 1 through March 17, 2008.
That same afternoon, Jubal faxed and emailed a formal complaint. Read it here. The complaint alleges numerous instances of unreported expenses, as well as at least one instance of expenses incurred but not yet paid that should have been, but was not, reported as Unpaid Bills.
While almost all media outlets have rules of conduct that would prohibit a traditional journalist from inserting him- or herself in the midst of a controversy, bloggers, a new breed combining various aspects of activism and journalism, suffer from no such limitations. Especially not if the blogger is open about his political affiliation and activities.
The Bolsavik is just not too sure whether that is good for the development of blogs as a form of citizen-journalism, though. In the long run, will pro-active measures such as the complaint by Jubal increase or decrease the credibility of news blogs in the eyes of the readers? A reasonable argument can go either way…
Bloggers, don’t just report the news (how boring), now you can make it too!
(How exciting)
Imagine sticking up a bank while writing a blog about bank robberies on your iphone? How Hunter S. Thompson/PoMo can you get? (As in Po M*th3rf$ck3r got shot)
And if reporters can make news, does that mean newsmakers can be reporters? Imagine Hoa Van Tran writing a blog about Jubal writing a blog about him? That is better than vengeance–that is confusing.
Hao-Nhien and his cleverness truly brings out something special in me, by special, I mean love. And as it was reported by Viet Art Center, that means it is now, truly real.
(I have a feeling someone will steal my bank robbery/blog idea. If so, I don’t want money, not that you would give me any, I just want to be adopted by Angelina Jolie cause I hear she likes Southeast Asian babie, and I am so much less maintenance because I am potty-trained and have three college degrees)
Bolsavik,
Rest assured, I didn’t file the complaint eagerly. I honestly thought a few days of public embarrassment would do the trick – a la Janet’s illegal legal defense fund. But it had been more than two weeks of daily drum-beating about Hoa’s TIN CUP violations…and NO ONE was doing ANYTHING about it.
Traditional journalists may have to stand by and suck it up, but bloggers can take action. That’s where the “citizen” part of citizen-journalism comes in.
I guess journalists are regulated and they adhere to the code of ethics, while it’s obvious that political junk like Jubal has no ethics. I’ve heard he is gay though. That explains his constant frustration, wining and crying about matters no one even cares about. It’s good Halloween is only once a year, or he would get out of his closet dressed like girl every chance he gets.
#1 someone posting with the tag “WWF Hero” has no grounds to gay bait, especially when he endorses sweaty guys in spandex mauling each other.
#2 You have absolutely no shred of dignity by spraying such filth on the blogs. You obviously have no moral or ethical standards to live by and thus have no credibility in this forum.
Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of and lie their in your own filth you disgusting pig.