The more I think about the latest exercise in hyperventilation over the now-defunct “Journolist” listserv, the more I have to laugh. The Daily Caller's newest story documents Journolist emails between liberal journalists regarding the media's coverage of Jeremiah Wright in 2008. The story is sort of interesting in that it shows how these liberal journalists tend not to censor themselves when privately expressing the same opinions they express publicly. What it doesn't show, contra the Daily Caller's sensationalist headline and Andrew Breitbart's spittle-flecked shouting, is a broader media “plot” to protect then-candidate Barack Obama. Or, as Breitbart put it, the “Alinsky warfare being waged against all that challenged the progressive orthodoxy.”

I find it amusing because of the absurd extrapolation required to arrive at these conclusions. The Daily Caller published emails from journalists working for The Nation, the Washington Independent, and the like collaborating on how to use their own resources (“whatever venues we have,” in the purported words of the Guardian's Michael Tomasky) to object to what they saw as irresponsible journalism from their peers regarding Wright and Obama. From this, the Daily Caller and Breitbart divined a broad-ranging “plot” and “conspiracy” by the media at large to protect Obama.

It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and that becomes even clearer once you set the Daily Caller's story against real examples of journalists manipulating news coverage to promote a political message. Take, for instance, the editorial memo Fox News' senior vice president for news John Moody sent to his staff following the 2006 midterm election. In that memo, Moody reassured his staff that the Democratic takeover of Congress was “a major event, but not the end of the world,” and asked them to be on the hunt for “any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress [sic].” Moody capped it all off by framing the House leadership battle between Reps. John Murtha (D-PA) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD) as “a former hawk v. a political hack,” and reminded his staff: “Just because the Dems won, the war on terror isnt' [sic] over.”

When compared to the news director of America's most watched cable news channel asking his reporters to frame the Democratic takeover of Congress in the context of the joy it inspired among Iraqi terrorists, a bunch of progressive journalists collaborating on an open letter to ABC seems kind of like small potatoes.