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Archive for the 'Blogs vs. MSM' Category

Dear Leaderboard, or: Mmmm… Pie Chart!

Published by William Beutler on October 25, 2007 in Asymmetrical Media, Blogs vs. MSM, Cable News, Charts and Graphs, MSM, Memeorandum, Newspapers, Tech Blogosphere, Technorati and William Beutler. 2 Comments

When Gabe Rivera unveiled his Techmeme Leaderboard a few weeks back, we politically-minded Internet junkies experienced something akin to spending Christmas morning watching another kid open presents. Okay, that’s pushing it. Maybe it’s like comparing your Easter morning haul with a friend who received a Nintendo game, when all you got was chocolate (I’ve forgiven, but never forgotten).

Top 25 sites on the Memeorandum LeaderboardIt made sense, though. The bloggers who show up on Techmeme are much more likely to track themselves on that site than are the bloggers who populate Memeorandum likely to watch themselves. Of couse, all tech bloggers are geeks in good standing, while only some of us political types are. So they get the goodies first.

But as expected, Rivera rolled out his Memeorandum Leaderboard, and he did so this week. As he explained, the Leaderboard

identifies 100 of [the most influential political blogs], ranking sources simply by how much they’ve appeared on memeorandum in the past month. It updates every 20 minutes and offers archives of past days. … The memeorandum Leaderboard doesn’t tell the whole story of course. For instance, influential curators of opinion like Instapundit.com don’t figure highly given memeorandum’s preference for longer articles. Yet it remains a handy portal to many of the sources with the greatest role in framing and shaping the national debate.

It’s handy, all right, and it fills a need. Five years ago, in a very different political blogosphere, The Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem was the definitive guide to the top political blogs. But with Rob Neppell (née N.Z. Bear) now focused on other projects, it’s fallen into obsolescence. The Technorati Top 100 was a welcome addition, but its inbound link counts were sometimes unreliable, it never focused on politics per se, and as I pointed out last year, the political blogs have to share the top 100 with many other genres. Since then, Technorati has lost its direction in other ways, and it’s too soon to tell whether founding CEO Dave Sifry’s departure will change things. I’m not counting on it.

So while Rivera’s list is worth analyzing, it should come as no surprise that the analysis so far has come from more tech-centric bloggers. For example, here’s TechCrunch’s Duncan Riley marveling at how important the legacy media remains, especially compared to the ’sphere in which he moves:

According to the list, based on story headlines on Memeorandum the New York Times, Washington Post and AP control over 22.4% of political headlines. The Atlantic Online, The National Review and CNN (twice) also make the top ten, leaving slim pickings for political blogs. … The (perhaps sad) state of the political blogosphere stands in contrast to the tech blogosphere, which dominates the equivalent Techmeme Leaderboard list, holding approx 64% of all spots.

The observation is fair, but I object to the judgment call. For one thing, defining the subject matter of Memeorandum as “politics” is far too narrow. Foreign affairs, U.S. diplomacy, domestic policy, electoral politics and sundry current events make up the subject matter at Memeorandum — a much broader spectrum of news and analysis than what TechMeme covers. Moreover, these subjects often require reporting from around the country and around the world that even in the digital age aged institutions with more resources than resolve continue to dominate. Most of the stories on TechMeme emanate from the Silicon Valley; Memeorandum spans the world at large.

GOP Internet consultant Patrick Ruffini has already taken a crack at evaluating what it says about the Right’s online fortunes. What it says is that Republicans and conservatives need to reinvent their online channels of communication:

Lots of bloggers have been over to Iraq, a commitment which makes the professional activists in the leftosphere look like dilettantes. Guys like Jeff [Emanuel], Bill Roggio, and Michael Yon have been the advance guard for this stuff. But nothing little has been done to institutionalize their work, to create counter-memes by controlling the upstream information flow through a system for nurturing these upstart war reporters. The failure to develop an effective counter-narrative out of Iraq is reflective of the “conservative message machine” and its reluctance to think outside the box.

Myself, I’m still thinking it over. To get started on the process, I separated all the websites on this afternoon’s Leaderboard into a few arbitrary categories and added up the percentages accorded to each. I then created a simple chart with Zoho Sheet (beating out Google Docs by a slim margin and NeoOffice by a much wider one) to visualize the statistical spread. Others will have different ways of breaking this out — and I may have different ways at a later date — but here’s what I came up with:

Memeorandum Leaderboard (by source type) - http://sheet.zoho.com

I should note the numbers taken off the leaderboard do not actually add up to 100%. That’s something I intend to ask Rivera about, and because the Zoho chart rounds them up to reach a sensible 100%, here are the actual numbers as I compiled them:


ARBITARY CATEGORY INEXACT NUMBER
Newspaper/Wire Content 38.65%
Liberal Blogs & Websites 14%
MSM-Backed Online Content 11.4%
Conservative Blogs & Websites 10.25%
Cable/TV News-Based Content 4.7%
Primary Sources Online 0.98%
Hard to Categorize Websites 0.86%

This dilutes MSM-owned websites only just a bit; as you can see, print and wire-based news stories commanded much, much more attention than websites based on television news, so you can squint and add that back in if you’d like. Add in MSM-created content specifically for the web, and it’s up over 60%. That is also a more arbitrary but, I would argue, more necessary category — “MSM Online” is where I placed any ostensibly non-partisan blog and any non-blog content by more partisan sources. These days established media organizations are creating more and more content for the web, and much of it differs in character from what they publish on dead trees. Liberal and Conservative blogs are more self-explanatory; the hard-to-categorize sites included Drudge Report and The Moderate Voice. The Primary Sources were Gallup, Rasmussen and whitehouse.gov. If anybody cares, I can forward the list as I compiled it. It could probably use some revision, and I certainly reserve the right to have made a clerical error here or there.

I’ll leave you that to chew over for now. I’ll be back with answers when I have them, and with any luck, I will be back inside of a month with a few more thoughts about what all is going on here.

In-Cohen-rent

Published by William Beutler on September 4, 2007 in Blogs vs. MSM, MSM vs. Blogs and Rhetoric. Closed

I’ve sometimes wondered if Beltway/MSM columnists include derogatory references to political bloggers merely to get a rise and, from that, some linkage. After reading this morning’s Richard Cohen column, I no longer wonder:

A survey of political bloggers showed that 94 percent of them had never been out of the country or read anything other than a Harry Potter book.

Unfortunately for Cohen, it doesn’t necessarily work.

P.S. Yes, I realize the headline of this post is, itself, in-cohen-rent.

Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They’re Not After You

Published by William Beutler on August 31, 2007 in Blogs vs. MSM, Charts and Graphs, Fundraising, Hillary Clinton, Scandal, Senate Control and Trend Tool. Closed

Macsmind laments an imbalance in attention to non-Larry Craig imbroglios this week:

Now on the same day that this story broke two other stories broke which contained absolute bombshells to both Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party in general. The first was the fact that George Soros’s defunked America Coming Together received the third largest fine in FEC history for voter fraud during the 2004 election. The other news of course – which hasn’t been told completely – is the growing campaign scandal involving several democratic candidate for president – including Hillary Clinton.

Both stories were just about knocked off the page by the Craig story and the obvious question was who behind the witholding of the story – again for two months – as almost to emerge the minute anti Hillary Clinton or anti democratic stories unfold.

First I’d like to point out, these stories (plus the not-so-distant Vitter revelations) mark another example of a cliché that isn’t necessarily wrong: Republicans can’t have sex, and Democrats can’t have money.

Second, he’s not wrong — the Hsu story might have been observed as a sign for Democrats that a Hillary Clinton administration could be scandal-ridden like her husband’s (well, not exactly like). And the left accuses Republicans of election-stealing enough that the Soros group’s financial misdeeds could have been pundicized, and bore greater scrutiny. Instead it seems to have only bored.

In fact, this this IceRocket trend chart showing comparative mentions almost makes the above observations sound understated:

Larry Craig vs. Norman Hsu vs. George Soros

Indeed the GOP gay no-sex scandal carried the week, and while that may be unfair, it certainly isn’t surprising. While there may well be solid examples of liberal-leaning reportorial and editorial decisions to be found throughout all this coverage, one also cannot deny the human drama of Craig’s unraveling career is more compelling than improprieties by non-electeds. In a tabloidy way, of course. After all, sensationalism is a troubling media bias, too.

P.S. Less than a year ago, this blog defended Sen. Craig against rumors very similar to his Minneapolis bust. Whoops! But based on the evidence at the time, no apology is necessary. A whisper campaign that turns out to be right is still a whisper campaign. A named source would have been a different story.

P.P.S. Mickey Kaus has a point about what Soros did and didn’t do. What he didn’t do was anything that conservatives and libertarians think should be illegal. What he did do was run afoul of existing FEC regulations. But conservatives have lost those battles, at least for now. What should be done is to change those laws, not excuse Soros for breaking them.

Breaking: AP says Craig is out. And you know what I mean.

Bring the Noises Off

Published by William Beutler on June 25, 2007 in Asymmetrical Media, Blogs vs. MSM, Democrats, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere and Netroots. Closed

Headline at Center for American Progress’ Think Progress blog, June 21:

The ‘Fairness Doctrine’ Myth: Right Wing Falsely Claims Progressives Want To Resurrect Mandatory Balance

Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Fox News Sunday, June 24:

WALLACE: So would you revive the fairness doctrine?

FEINSTEIN: Well, I’m looking at it, as a matter of fact, Chris, because I think there ought to be an opportunity to present the other side. And unfortunately, talk radio is overwhelmingly one way.

Zing!

When I saw that TP headline last week, I was more than a little dubious. After all, Dennis Kucinich is an outspoken fan of the dead regulation, as are certain quarters of the leftosphere. But little did I expect that this absurd claim would be proved “false” (a favorite word of TP and Media Matters) by such a prominent Democrat, not to mention one known primarily as a moderate.

It reminds me of a brief controversy from earlier this month, where The Politico’s John Bresnahan reported that Harry Reid had called outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace “incompetent.” Bloggers from the call didn’t remember it, accused Bresnahan of making the whole thing up, and when it turned out he hadn’t, they weren’t especially contrite about it.

What’s interesting about all this is that in both cases, prominent representatives of the liberal netroots strenuously denied something that was not only true but arguably even helpful to their side, simply because a political adversary had stated it. In both cases they went overboard, creating more negative press for themselves than if they’d just left it alone.

Think Progress would certainly be right if they merely argued that conservative bloggers talk about the fairness doctrine coming back more than progressive bloggers, but arguing that “progressives” have no interest in using the doctrine as a weapon against right-wing talk radio just won’t fly. And as James Joyner asked at the time, what part of the Democrats’ Senate leader calling a Bush appointee “incompetent” did they not like?

The key difference is that Think Progress tried to maintain a position that most observers knew was not true, then dropped the subject. Bresnahan’s critics, on the other hand, defended a point most probably didn’t know for sure and then, unwilling to end on a retraction, changed the terms of debate instead.

I don’t have a full case to make about what it all means, but it is interesting that here in the span of two weeks we have two examples of the left’s own noise machine being unsure of exactly what sound to make.

Probably Elizabeth or: Comment Registration Makes Good Neighbors

Published by William Beutler on April 19, 2007 in Asymmetrical Media, Blogs vs. MSM, Comment Sections, Metapost and White House '08. 3 Comments

Since last week, D.G. Hall (née Joe Tobacco) of Cadillac Tight has been trying to nail down the identities of a couple of interesting commenters on his blog, who abruptly appeared this past week, then just as abruptly left. And you probably already know exactly who one of them is.

Elizabeth Edwards vs. Monty JohnsonThe saga begins with the AP story from last Wednesday, about Elizabeth Edwards’ feud (if it wasn’t one already, it was about to be) with Monty Johnson, a neighbor in Raleigh, North Carolina. Said by Mrs. Edwards to be a “rabid, rabid Republican” (albeit one with a “Go Rudy Giuliani 2008″ sign in his yard, so how much of an extremist could he really be?), Mr. Johnson had once “brought out a gun while chasing workers investigating a right of way near his property,” and maintains a “slummy” lot, to which Johnson replied, “I have to budget. I have to live within my means.”

If nothing else, it was an off-message moment for John Edwards’ campaign and for Elizabeth (or as we like to call her, EE) as well.

Hall noticed the story and posted an excerpt, “wondering” why the leftosphere hadn’t noticed this. On which post, of all people, EE (or someone purporting to be her) left a comment advancing her side of the story:

I don’t hate him. I don’t know him. He is not my neighbor. He invests in property near ours, which, I understand, is under contract for above $1.5M. He owns at least 15 different pieces of property … When workers were hooking up power in the area, the Duke Power folks complained that he had threatened them with a gun when they were in the power easement right-of-way at the street in front of his property … The Rudy sign is fine: it gives us a way to tell people where to turn.

Hall welcomed her to the site and asked for confirmation that she really said of Johnson, “I wouldn’t be nice to him, anyway.” The following morning, EE responded once more:

I would always be nice to someone. (I am a Southerner; we are nice to everyone and particularly nice to those with whom we disagree. And North Carolina is a pretty divided state politically, so we all get a lot of chances to practice that.) He had previously said I wasn’t nice to him. As far as I know, I have never laid eyes on him.

To which another commenter asked:

Ah, but Mrs. Edwards, the question was…Is the above quote accurate?

EE didn’t return, and as of Friday afternoon, that was that. Until yesterday, that is, when the same post received a comment from one Ronda Johnson, claiming to be the daughter of old man Johnson:

Thank you to Mrs. Edwards for her investigative reporting, but she is completely incorrect! It is actually quite scary to myself and the rest of my family that she has went so far as to investigate my father, Monty Johnson! Unfortunately, she is not up to date or accurate at all ! Again, the property on Ivey road sold several years ago in order to keep his current proprty across the street from her where he has lived since his grand daughter was born 9 years ago! He has never owned proprty on Union Grove Church Road, though his son does in his son’s name! The rest of the lot’s and acreage are located right across the street from her and mostly filled with mobile homes! As far as the incident that occurred with Duke Power, Monty was not in town and the sherriff was called and Duke Power made to leave because they were in the wrong! I know because the incident occurred with me! As for her being friendly, well I never seen that! I was volunteer coordinator for Emma,s class last year and couldn’t even get money for a pack of pansies donated by them or for any other project we asked for help or money on! I never even got a phone call returned! John attended 1 party for the teachers birthday and sat directly across from me and never spoke! Though he did maintain a smile the entire time, even while eating! I must say that the silky pony will be the prettiest president we’ve ever had, should he succeed! Elizabeth hasn’t been rich long enough to have rich friends and too long to have poor friends, so I guess the lonely sole will just investigate and pick on her neighbors!

There’s something curious about the fact that every single one of Ms. Johnson’s sentences ends with an exclamation point! It doesn’t exactly come across as a sign of sincerity! Nor does the “silky pony” reference! But you never know, maybe Ronda Johnson reads blogs! After all, Elizabeth Edwards does!

Plus, there is a Ronda Johnson listed (Google her name, or call their new 411 service) as living in Raleigh. Same h-less spelling, too. Hall tried calling it, but couldn’t get an answer.

Hall had also matched EE’s e-mail address to other plausible EE registrations, such as one at My Left Wing. The address (Hall says the account is bouncing now) is probablyElizabeth at johnedwards.com, perhaps mischievously, suggesting the user knew other blog readers would question its provenance. Plus, being a minor scholar of EE’s blogospheric participaticipation, I’d say it certainly sounds like her.

As Hall graciously notes in his wrap-up post, he contacted me and I lived up to the name of this blog by matching the IP addresses to the possible commenters’ probable locations. As he puts it:

1) The IP address for Ronda Johnson resolves to the correct geographical area, and the comment left here matches up nicely with a comment Ronda Johnson left at Bill Quick’s site on April 12th, when this story was breaking. I can’t imagine anyone running around the internet impersonating Mr. Johnson’s daughter, but there is always a possibility someone is doing so. Caveat emptor on this one.

2) The IP address for Elizabeth Edwards resolves to Orlando, FL, which isn’t consistent with Mrs. Edwards’ location. However, John Edwards was in Fort Myers, FL on April 15th (thanks again, William), so it’s entirely plausible that his wife could have been using an Orlando based dial-up ISP to leave those comments. Still, we can’t be sure, so Caveat emptor.

That sounds about right. Could be both, maybe even neither — but it’s probably at least one of them (EE), and someone who knows the other one (RJ). If all is as it seems, an AP story reporting some offhand comments fueled a lingering resentment between two neighboring families, subsequently breaking out into the comment section of an interested but uninvolved blogger.

Heck, they’re practically the Montagues and Capulets of the Research Triangle. Sort of not really. But just think of how it’ll play at the next PTA night.

Bonus observation! Fifteen years ago, there wasn’t a blogosphere to hash out neighborly disputes like this one. But they did have something arguably better.

Matt Stoller Will Brook No Tomfoolery

Published by Olly Ruff on April 19, 2007 in Blogs vs. MSM, Netroots and Seriously. 8 Comments

… although he does provide us with a glimpse into the life of an A-list blogger here. We eagerly await the next installment:

Matt Stoller's "Annoying" Email

Is it just me, or does this seem like a slightly unwarranted response? If the journalist contacting Stoller was from an ideological foe like, say, the American Spectator, that would be one thing — the stuff about “slippery questions” and “ethical responsibilities” might well read like a prelude to a hatchet job. But having a go at a dependably lefty publication like Mother Jones for their temerity in requesting an interview? Dude, that is ice cold.

Tragedy 2.0

Published by William Beutler on April 17, 2007 in 9/11 Attacks, Asymmetrical Media, Blogs vs. MSM, Cable News, Facebook, MSM vs. Blogs and Tech Blogosphere. Closed

Post-Columbine, post-9/11, post-Iraq, are we desensitized to mass murders these days?

Doesn’t seem to be: The tragedy at Virginia Tech has at least captivated the mainstream media, pulling it out of its embarrassing, Anna Nicole/Imus-obsessing doldrums to a hypertensive level not seen since the aforementioned debacles plus Katrina.

Each major media disaster story since at least the dot-com bubble reveals new voices and resources from the online mediasphere, and to the extent that we know to follow them — that we can devise filters to locate them — it helps us understand these things better than we did back when most of the media we consumed was on glossy paper.

And since Drudge and MSNBC and others have already reported the name and online profile of Emily Hilscher, the first victim of yesterday’s horrible awfulness* — and as an antidote to Wayne Chiang, the Asian-American Hokie gun fetishist with girl troubles and a Livejournal account — I might as well share this screen shot from Facebook:

Emily Hilscher on Facebook

Her page is not public, and I suppose it will probably remain as much in the hands of her friends and family. But there are also 27 groups with her name in their main content and with hundreds of members, which grew literally overnight.

Part of me thinks there’s something invasive in writing about this, but ultimately it’s all part of the record. Here there are no candles and no songs — but it’s a digital vigil. It doesn’t convey how it actually feels, but it does show that people feel.

P.S. Via Techmeme, I see Dan Gillmor, Doc Searls and Xeni Jardin have been thinking along the same lines. And somehow, Slate’s Michael Agger managed to write an entire article about the massacre and social networking without a single mention of Facebook. Plus, according to Hotline On Call, producers from ABC and NBC have been posting interview requests to Facebook:

Our thoughts are with everyone affected by the horrific tragedy at Virginia Tech. In our ongoing coverage, we want to speak with people that knew Cho Seung-Hui. We have anchors and producers on campus that would love to meet with you.

Okay, I feel a bit less of a ghoul now.

*I don’t know what else to call it, I’m never very good writing about these things, and I’ve already blown the chance to suspend blogging, which I might as well have because I didn’t have a Benchmark Poll ready to go today.

Meme, Ho!: Among the Nappy-Minded Bloggers

Published by William Beutler on April 17, 2007 in Blogs vs. MSM, Entertainment and Language. 4 Comments

Don Imus gets fired. Don Ho passes away. For one, media overkill; the other, next to nothing. Bloggers have noticed. Blog P.I. documents the phenomenon:

Don Imus Killed Don Ho
     –Smile Keith

P.S. Anyone else find it eerie that DON Imus got fired for calling people HOs, and then Don Ho died?
     –Tennboy

Now that Don Imus has lost his radio show, he won’t have to face additional criticism for reporting the death of Don Ho.
     –Lisa De Pasquale

Don Ho, Don Imus, Nappy-Headed Hos (Don Ho)Don Ho, the legendary Hawaiian crooner died of heart failure Saturday morning. Unfortunately not so many people heard the sad news because nobody in the media dared say his last name anymore.
     –Pedro Jokes

51 percent of American think Don Imus shoulda been fired, 45% thought the pollsters were making an inappropriate joke about the late, beloved Don Ho.
     –Lisa De Pasquale

Don Ho, the legendary Hawaiian crooner died of heart failure Saturday morning. Unfortunately not so many people heard the sad news because nobody in the media dared say his last name anymore.
     –Pedro Jokes

51 percent of American think Don Imus shoulda been fired, 45% thought the pollsters were making an inappropriate joke about the late, beloved Don Ho.
     –Wonkette

DON Imus gets in deep shit for using the word “HO.” Days later, Don HO dies. Hmm. I’m just saying.
     –XMASTIME

For Don Ho to die just so that I could joke that the name is now available for Don Imus to use. I met Mr. Ho in 1974. Nice guy.
     –Protein Wisdom

Don Ho, Don Imus, Nappy-Headed Hos (Don Imus)Let me get this straight: Don Imus drops a comment about the Rutgers women’s basketball team being a bunch of “nappy-headed ho’s,” and the mediasphere goes berzerk. But nappy-headed Hawaiin icon Don Ho dies, and you can almost hear crickets chirping out there. Coincidence or conspiracy? Discuss.
     –Charleston City Paper

No Relation to Imus
“Don Ho Dies”–headline, Pacific Business News (Honolulu), April 14
     –James Taranto

Don Imus called you “nappy-headed.”
Not very kind of him.
I’m glad he got fired.
Aloha.
     –The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs

Ah, that Bubbly-headed Ho. I apologise to Don Imus but I just couldn’t resist.
     –Victoria Ponders

In conclusion… er… beats me. But the English major in me is intrigued.

Update: Lest we forget –

If my name was taken in vain all over the news for 2 weeks straight, I’d give up too.

Sorry, Mr. Ho! R.I.P. I still remember your ABC daytime show from my childhood. My very, very early childhood. I was like an embryo, allegedly.
     –Jim Treacher

Via the comments.

Weekend Update

Published by William Beutler on February 10, 2007 in Blogs vs. MSM, Entertainment, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere and Newspapers. Closed

The Iraq war-supporting and -opposing halves of the political blogosphere don’t agree on much, but one thing they do have in common is an abiding mistrust (or distrust) of the mainstream media, especially when the subject is Iraq.

This lack of trust often begets outright derision, sometimes even overt attempts at and references to comedic entertainment. Today, as juxtaposed at Memeorandum, the Washington Post takes a whack from the right and the New York Times takes one from the left:

Neo-Neocon, on Walter Pincus and R. Jeffrey Smith’s “Official’s Key Report On Iraq Is Faulted”:

Neo-Neocon and Emily Litella

A Tiny Revolution, on Michael R. Gordon’s “Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says”:

A Tiny Revolution and Michael Gordon

There’s some mild irony here — the editorial division of the New York Times has mostly opposed the Iraq war, while the Washington Post’s editorial page has mostly supported it. Of course, today’s complaints are directed at the ostensibly impartial news division. Editorial editors may have their fans, but among partisans, the straight news reporter has no advocates.

From the Home Office in Arlington, Virginia…

Published by William Beutler on January 25, 2007 in Blogs vs. MSM, Entertainment and Seriously. Closed

In a feature published Monday, PC World counted up the “Top 10 Internet Scandals of All Time.” Though most items on the list come from the world of business (two stories about the music industry’s anti-piracy tactics) and entertainment (two stories about Paris Hilton) they devoted the final three to politics and the media.

Dan Rather and David LettermanIn order as announced, PC World considers the top three Internet scandals to be: The blogger-led debunking of CBS’s report on Bush’s Guard service, 3. Dan Rather Bids a Font Farewell; the revelation of then-Rep. Mark Foley’s inappropriate e-mails to minor staffers, 2. A Real Page Turner, and the Drudge Report publishing Newsweek’s spiked story about Monica Lewinsky, 1. Monica-gate and Whitewater.

You’ll get no argument from me about number one… except that author Dan Tynan seems a little confused about which scandal led to the other:

The Lewinsky scandal put the Internet on hyperalert, drawing its attention to an ongoing and arguably bigger scandal called Whitewater.

Dan, Wikipedia is there for a reason. Use it.

But to main the point: Mark Foley’s resignation is a bigger deal than Dan Rather’s? Come again? Heck, Foley even happened on an off-year election. Nobody outside of politics knew who Foley before the scandal, and now he’s a punchline on late-night TV. Dan Rather, on the other hand, was the anchor of the CBS Evening News, and now he’s… a punchline on late-night TV.

But even Tynan is careful not to oversell the case:

Foley’s disgrace may not have brought about the Republican electoral debacle last November, but it didn’t help his or his party’s cause.

And this is a bigger scandal than Yahoo and Google enabling censorship in China? I was about to write that PC World should stay out of politics, but that might be a bit hypocritical, considering the current venue. Instead, I’ll just suggest they develop a sense of proportion.

·      ·      ·

Forbes Web Celeb 25, Jessica Rose -- Lonelygirl15And don’t get me started on Forbes’ “The Web Celeb 25.” Jessica “Lonelygirl15″ Rose is #1?! If Forbes knows that Rose didn’t write, direct or edit the spots that made her (sort of) famous, they’re not telling. And Markos Moulitsas (#3) is more important than Matt Drudge (#4)? Please. We can debate this point when Daily Kos gets 16,132,714 visitors in a 24-hour period.

Besides, the real action at dKos isn’t his posts or even his hand-picked front-pagers, it’s in the user diaries. And they write:

To his legions of fans, he’s better known as “Kos,” an Army nickname that rhymes with “dose.” To conservative U.S. politicians, he’s known as a perpetual thorn in the side of the Republican Party.

Ha. To those who actually are familiar with the site, Kos is more a thorn in the side of the Democratic party. His book, “Crashing the Gate,” has almost nothing to say about Republicans except they’re really bad people. And you can imagine how aggrieved conservative U.S. politicians were when they heard… actually, they never heard that.

But I suppose they deserve some credit for knowing how to pronounce his name.

P.S. Yes, I realize this is essentially the same thing as complaining about Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” leaning way too hard on the 1960s and 70s. That is to say, that’s just what they want us to do.