Glenn Greenwald, here and here, and Joshua Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo here responded to various critics of lefty blogs, and while the specifics are different, the general tone is the same as it ever was - we lefty bloggers are fact-free spinners, ranting uncontrollably on issues we do not understand. Greenwald makes the best general observation on critics of the blogosphere, in the first (which is the earlier) piece linked to here, in which he says that, to critics of blogs, we are "the new Rush Limbaugh". The comparison is apt in some ways, to the extent that we are the remarkably successful users of a new medium, just as Limbaugh was of talk radio. The similarities, however, end there, and any conscientious reader of blogs, regardless of ideology should understand the most crucial difference - our political commentary, while occasionally heated, sometimes profane, and almost always provocative, is as strong on accuracy and attention to facts as Limbaugh's is on flights of infantile fantasy. The best blogs - to which I link and from which I have learned much of how to do what it is I do - pay attention to links and updates; name names, site sources, respond to comments when possible and/or applicable; admit error and correct misreporting whenever possible. This last point is important. None of us are perfect, and we get things wrong. I have yet to read a blog that spins fantasy in the way right-wing talk radio blabbers do, free of any accountability whatsoever. Because we are an interactive medium (talk radio pretends to be, but is not), we have a responsibility to respond to legitimate criticism and questions of veracity as soon and as often as possible.
Of the three posts linked to above, the most interesting is the one at TPM. That site, which is not a blog but an internet journalism site that is non-partisan in its pursuit of corruption and general public malfeasance, was named by Michael Skube in an op-ed in yesterday's Los Angeles Times as one site that routinely misstates facts, etc., etc., etc. One of Skube's criticisms, which is common among journalists, is that we bloggers aren't journalists - we don't do research, we don't interview people, la-di-da-di-dum. Marshall emailed Skube and asked him if he had read TPM in detail and was aware of its fundamental difference from, say, Atrios or digby. Skube said that he had never read TPM. Marshall then asked why Skube named TPM in his column. Skube replied that he hadn't; it was inserted by an editor. Marshall did not ask Skube (to my knowledge) why he signed off on the column if things were put in the column that did not reflect his own understanding or knowledge or research.
Greenwald's discussions concern criticisms from the "foreign policy community", an on-going discussion that is long overdue, and points out the simple-mindedness, the clubishness, and the narrow range of acceptable debate allowed by the Mandarins of public policy. What I find most fascinating about the original criticism, as well as the dialogue Greenwald engages in, is the assumption on the part of so-called experts, that those who are not card-carrying members of the foreign policy community do not understsand the way real foreign policy analysis works. This is from people who have pretty much destroyed any credibility the United States might have enjoyed before George Bush took over. Before that, they attempted to destroy the Russian economy. Before that, they were caught flat-footed by the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. Something tells me there are reasons not to take them too seriously. Greenwald does them the courtesy of responding to questions that are patronizing and should have been met with counter-questions.
Mainstream pundits, "experts", "journalists", and others keep trying to destroy the credibility of the political blogs, and they keep failing. The reason, I believe, is that the rules have changed on those in traditional media, and they don't like it. I am proud to call myself a blogger. The fact that David Frum cited me along with atrios in a column at NRO online a few months back shows that even a little z-level blog like this gets noticed on occasion. We are making a difference, and we need to keep at it.
Virtual Tin Cup
