That the Main Stream Media uses Blogs for it’s political news gathering.
For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList.
Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy?
Not at all, says Ezra Klein, the 24-year-old American Prospect blogging wunderkind who formed JournoList in February 2007. “Basically,” he says, “it’s just a list where journalists and policy wonks can discuss issues freely.”
But some of the journalists who participate in the online discussion say — off the record, of course — that it has been a great help in their work. On the record, The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin acknowledged that a Talk of the Town piece — he won’t say which one — got its start in part via a conversation on JournoList. And JLister Eric Alterman, The Nation writer and CUNY professor, said he’s seen discussions that start on the list seep into the world beyond.
via JournoList: Inside the echo chamber – Michael Calderone – POLITICO.com.
…..and a collective “Duh!” went up over the Blogosphere. This what I, and every other Blogger has known for years, that the MSM uses the Political Blogosphere for collecting its news.
An interesting quote:
“I’m very lazy about writing when I’m not getting paid,” Alterman said. “So if I take the trouble to write something in any detail on the list, I tend to cannibalize it. It doesn’t surprise me when I see things on the list on people’s blogs.”
He is not the only one. I’ve read where even Bill O’Reilly has ripped off elements of the Conservative political Blogosphere and not even bothered to credit it’s sources. Which is about typical for the journalistic world. “Let’s rip off the Bloggers, nobody reads those things anyhow!” Think I’m full of it? Think again. 90% of all political stories come from our realm.
As for the conspiracy aspect of it. I don’t really buy into that. The Liberals are doing simply what the Conservatives did in the 1990’s when Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush in the elections. They’re organizing their media outlets. Exchanging information to report on. It is really no big deal.
So, I really do not see what the big fuss is about. Democrats got smart, after losing 2 elections, and before that, having a disaster for a President; the Democrats are just not going to screw this chance up, when it getting things right this time. I cannot fault them for this.
I do believe that the Politico is really trying to make a boogie man sitution out of something that just really is not there. There is nothing wrong the Blogging world working with it’s political counterparts to get their message on point. I believe if the G.O.P. had done this more and had gotten it’s message right and a great number of other things right, Obama might have lost this election. The trouble is the G.O.P. was busy harping on rather stupid stuff, than on the real message at hand.
So, while this might be a nice headline for the Meme Trackers. There is nothing in this story that I, at least, find to be of a scandalous nature.
Others: protein wisdom, Hot Air, Erick’s blog, The Corner, Newshoggers.com, Patterico’s Pontifications, NewsBusters.org, Grasping Reality …, PoliGazette, Open Left, Ben Smith’s Blog, The Corner