Still waiting for the MSM blogger profiles, cont'd
November 17, 2008 12:50 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
We actually laughed out loud when we saw this in the latest issue of Newsweek. It's a very gee-whiz profile of Erick Erickson who runs the right-wing blog RedState. Y'know, the one that just backed the losing candidate and is part of the Rightroots movement, which has been completely lapped in terms of growth, participation and influence by the liberal blogosphere.
But see, for the mainstream media it's always the right-wing bloggers who are of more interest. It's always the right-wing bloggers who get the ink at the expense of their liberal counterparts. And that's why, to this day for instance, Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz has never written up a feature profile of a prominent A-list liberal blogger.
The Beltway press doesn't care about liberal bloggers who have helped change the face of American politics over the last four years. But a right-winger like Erickson who runs a GOP bulletin board and is part of the floundering Rightroots movement? Now that's a story worth telling. (And yes, Newsweek's Suzanne Smalley air-brushed the hate out of RedState, like when Erickson attacked war activist Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, for being "a left wing media whore.")
What a charming guy, and what a wonderful item this makes for the Newsweek profile. Wonder if they used it? I'm guessing not. Erickson should stay busy though, adding to his list. Wonder if he'll put Newt Gingrich on it? Erickson is a double corruption to a great name.
But see, for the mainstream media it's always the right-wing bloggers who are of more interest. It's always the right-wing bloggers who get the ink at the expense of their liberal counterparts.
Howard Kurtz aside, this is not entirely true, Eric. I'm a little suprised that you ignore the following, for example: Newsweek gave Markos from DailyKos his own part-time column in the magazine this election cycle (along with Karl Rove, I know). And the liberal-leaning blogger Ana Marie Cox has been the Washington editor of Time.com for a couple of years now. I see no similar promotion from the blogs to the MSM on the rightroots movement.
And as far as the "Beltway press" not giving liberal bloggers credit for influencing American politics (as compared to the likes of Matt Drudge on the right), maybe if the likes of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, David Shuster and others at MSNBC actually credited DailyKos, ThinkProgress and Huffington Post for story ideas more often, instead of leeching material from them every week without saying where it came from most of the time, maybe, just maybe the MSM would recognize them more often!
You see, because the left-leaning members of the MSM, particularly on MSNBC are afraid of being tagged as biased towards the left, they hide their true sources for a lot of the political discussions that go on every night. Yes, FOX and CNN and even MSNBC use story ideas from the Drudge Report without mentioning it as the source too, but the likes of Hannity, Halperin, and even Jack Cafferty are more open about using Drudge than the left is of using liberal blogs as sources. And that's because Drudge has been a household name in the media for 10 years now.
So if you want the MSM to give credit to liberal bloggers for being influential in American politics, tell the Keith Olbermanns and Maddows of the world to credit these liberal bloggers every night and stop worrying about the liberal bias tag. If the story is true, it doesn't matter where it came from. If it's not, THEN you worry about its source, left or right.
tell the Keith Olbermanns and Maddows of the world to credit these liberal bloggers every night
They're starting to do that. But basically, their primary sources are MMFA and Digby, with a little Greenwald mixed in.