The folks at Media Matters are not happy about media treatment of lefty bloggers:
Liberal bloggers get dismissed as crazy and angry, often by reporters who don’t bother to offer a single example to back up their sneering insults… Meanwhile, vitriol, hate, and even threats of physical violence by conservative bloggers draw comparatively little attention.
In a way, having Joe Klein complain about “all the left-wing screeching” is a tribute - it’s a sign they’re being taken seriously. For better or worse, the left-netroots are perceived as a political entity unto themselves in a way that the right-netroots are not - there are “netroots candidates,” there are entertaning internecine squabbles, there are wonderful spectacles like CT-SEN ‘06. The rightosphere has a much less adversarial relationship with its own side of the political establishment. (Well, there’s Porkbusters, I suppose.) If the folks at (say) the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler took a break from providing Media Matters with febrile quotes and began aggressively taking sides in Republican primaries, they’d probably attract a lot more negative attention too.
As for the “vitriol, hate, and threats of physical violence,” there are some puzzling choices here. Along with a couple of Rottweiler posts (fair enough) and some people publishing home addresses of NYT employees, we find this Jane Galt post from 2003, and this 2002 Instapundit offering. As for what they’re doing on this list, your guess is as good as mine.
Meanwhile, at time of writing, 882 people have appended their names to a petition urging “the media” to cease and desist from publishing/broadcasting pundits they don’t like. Onward to victory! (Although if this anguished plea does convince Universal Press Syndicate to drop Ann Coulter, that probably doesn’t bode well for Ted Rall.)
0 Responses to “Media Matters: Enough Is Enough, Again”