Carlson's new conservative portal, Daily Caller (or “DC”), launched on Monday and one of the strangest traits of its homepage continues to be all the blaring “The DC Exclusive” tags above scores of headlines:
-“The DC Exclusive: Scott Brown campaign brings in more than $1 million in Massachusetts Senate fundraising blast”
-“The DC Exclusive: Barack Obama says uproar over Harry Reid's 'Negro dialect' comment makes 'absolutely no sense'”
I must say I'm confused because, thanks to the wonders of Google, you can find endless news articles and blog posts today detailing how Mass. Republican Scott Brown raised more than $1 million yesterday, and just as many articles picking up on Obama's quote about the Reid kerfuffle.
But apparently, at Carlson's DC, an “exclusive” is anything that's produced by a DC staff writer. For real. At Daily Caller, an exclusive = any original content.
The thinking appears to be, for example, because the only place you'll find the Daily Caller's Alex Pappas writing today about Scott Brown fundraising haul is at Daily Caller, that means it's an exclusive. Or something like that. None of the facts contained within the article are “exclusive” per se. In fact, the DC piece reads pretty much like every other Scott Brown fundraising story today. But because somebody at DC actually sat down and typed it up (as opposed to DC linking to somebody's else's article) that means--to-da!--it's an “exclusive.”
For the record, I'd like to say this is goofy beyond belief. But on the other hand, I kind of like the possibilities because if the DC trend becomes widespread I could soon hype every County Fair blog post I write as an “exclusive” because, technically, nobody else named Eric Boehlert is writing at Media Matters.