Last week, I preemptively noted that conservatives thinking about using the shuttering of Air America to argue that there is no market for liberal media should keep two things in mind: That they cannot simultaneously argue that the establishment media is liberal and that there is no market for liberal media, and that conservative news outlets like Fox News and the Washington Times benefited from massive subsidies from their right-wing billionaire owners.

Over at Big Journalism (last seen accidentally attacking its sibling site, Big Government), Billy Hallowell calls my post “vapid,” while demonstrating an unwillingness or inability to understand the written word. I'll get to that in a second.

First, Hallowell insists that CBS and the New York Times are in fact “biased” in favor of liberals:

First and foremost, research backs up the notion that outlets like CBS News and the New York Times are biased ...

Hallowell links no such “research,” so here's some he should read over: New York Times | CBS. Then he should consider the Times' disparate treatment of Al Gore and George W. Bush in 2000, and the paper's role in the rush to war in Iraq -- among many, many other shortcomings. And CBS ... Well, CBS anchor Bob Schieffer is a longtime friend of Bush's -- Schieffer's brother was a Bush business partner, later given an ambassadorship by Bush -- who has regularly opined in favor of Bush and harshly condemned Democrats. Again: among many, many other examples.

Hallowell continues:

...but even if there were no scholarship to corroborate this notion, Foser's argument makes little sense. Most conservatives aren't claiming that liberal media outlets can't succeed (though the left has had a tough time pushing unabashedly liberal outlets to the top); they're making the case that liberal radio, absent public monies, cannot stand on its own. Those are two very different ideals.

OK ... but I was addressing the first of those “two very different ideals.” So I'm not really sure what Hallowell thinks he's proving by saying my post doesn't apply to people it wasn't addressed to.

Hallowell:

Additionally, Foser's statement that The Washington Times has lost money for decades is a silly corroborative comment. Tell me Mr. Foser, how many newspapers are posting record profits these days?

Got that? It's no big deal that The Washington Times has always lost money because other newspapers are currently losing money. Hallowell doesn't know the difference between a newspaper whose massive losses have been subsidized for every minute of its existence and newspapers that are currently facing financial difficulties as the entire industry undergoes massive transformation. And he thinks my post was “vapid”!

There's a bunch of other nonsense in there, in which Hallowell argues with things he imagines I wrote. For example, Hallowell is just furious at my non-existent statement that Rupert Murdoch's payments to cable carriers were a “moral problem.” I wrote nothing of the kind -- I didn't criticize the payments on any grounds, moral or otherwise -- and can only conclude that Billy Hallowell either can't read or enjoys lying. Either way, it seems best to leave it at that.