The best-laid plans...
I wrote this post earlier today and, being unable to post from work, emailed it to myself. Now I discover that Richard Silverstein of Tikun Olam had already posted an excellent article that makes the same basic point as mine, albeit from a different perspective. (See previous entry.)
However, since I hate to see all that hard work go to waste, here's my post anyway. Mine has pie charts!
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On Tuesday, we noted an article in CNet:
Though the roster, which included Reynolds and Fox News, may at first glance seem weighted toward the conservative side, Simon insisted it would encompass viewpoints from across the political spectrum.
Sadly, No!*
The colors should require no elaboration. However, a “purple” category has been added in Figure 2 to encompass those Pajamazoids who are clearly not leftist but who have not fully partaken of the “anti-idiotarian” Kool-Aid®.
Naturally these opinions about the political orientation of other blogs are highly subjective (though I did look at each one, and my judgments are based on a quick scan of several recent posts and, most tellingly, their blogrolls). And I'm no big fan of the “red/blue” construct either, but we’re stuck with it.
Fans of the Roger & Charlie Show will respond by insisting that PJ Media is a worldwide operation, so the question of whether it reflects the political complexion of the U.S. is irrelevant. A ludicrous claim, since the list is heavily dominated by bloggers who are either American or U.S.-based** (or, most often, both), and we suspect that PajamaCorp, being a U.S. company, will be soliciting business mostly from U.S. advertisers.
Another possible objection is that Figure 2 above is nothing but a mirror image of the composition of the U.S. press corps, which is allegedly dominated by left-leaning scribblers and talking heads.
But here’s the thing.
Real journalists have editors. And those editors have to answer to publishers. And it’s far from evident that U.S. editors and publishers have an institutionalized discernible left-wing bias. Certainly
some of them do, but an overwhelming majority?
Sadl-- oh, wait, I've done that bit already.
To summarize: David Corn is going to have his work cut out for him if he wants to avoid becoming the “Alan Colmes” of the entity soon to be known as the thingie formerly known as Pajamas Media.
*Sadly, No! is a service mark of
Sadly, No! G.m.b.H.
**In an exciting future episode of “Fun with Microsoft® Excel™ , we’ll be examining Charles Johnson’s claim to have recruited bloggers in “every corner of the planet" (FSVO “every corner of the planet" meaning the U.S., Australia, and a couple of places in Asia, but absolutely nowhere in Europe that we can tell. Or Africa, South America, or Antarctica either. But it’s early days yet).
