Hat tip to durrati, over in the My Left Wing version, for finding this picture for me
The title of this post is based on a comment by Madscientist in Maryscott O’Connor’s essay A Lesser Blogger: Or, You Don’t Count–he noted that personally, he didn’t find it all that bad to be “children of a lesser blog”. I liked the turn of a phrase, so I decided to use it–in a tongue in cheek way–as the title of this post. I certainly do not consider My Left Wing to be a “lesser” blog. And I’m proud of the dedication and independent spirit that is displayed by we, the many, who are not “top tier” bloggers.
Maryscott’s essay was written in response to a Media Matters piece by Eric Boehlert, entitled Wash. Post still blind to liberal blogger successes. Mr. Boehlert does make some valid points–for example, comparing how often the Post quotes or mentions by name, liberal versus conservative bloggers. But things go downhill when he starts in on his hymn (How Great Thou Art) to Markos/Daily Kos…
To this day, the Washington Post has never profiled Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of The Daily Kos, the most popular and influential political weblog in the world. The Post didn’t even review last year’s influential Crashing the Gate, the hardcover progressive manifesto that Kos co-wrote with fellow blogging pioneer Jerome Armstrong.
…and hit bottom with his sneeringly dismissive description of the Post’s front page profile of Maryscott O’Connor. The piece certainly had its negative aspects, but I think Boehlert mischaracterizes it. And a big part of his point seems to be that the newspaper profiled a “lesser known” liberal blogger rather than the well known, but not at all liberal Markos Moulitsas.
You can contact Media Matters through this link. (Adapted from the Media Matters recommendations for contacting the media) Please be polite and professional. Express your specific concerns regarding Eric Boehlert’s commentary, and be sure to indicate exactly what you would like Media Matters to do differently in the future.
I’ve been on Media Matters’ mailing list for some time now. I believe they do good work, and I share their action items and alerts as time permits. Even if I’m a much lesser known blogger, I believe that doing whatever little bit we can do matters. Finding out that Duncan Black (aka Atrios, the founder of Blogroll Amnesty Day) was a Senior Fellow at Media Matters gave me pause, but I thought it was unfair to let that one thing bias me against the organization. But Boehlert’s piece was another clue that this media watchdog organization endorses and upholds the unspoken (well, among the “cool kids” it’s unspoken…) caste system among bloggers. And, I’m sorry, but that’s just not cool. I’m not too excited about the notion of crowning new royalty to replace the high and mighty media people once they are de-throned. I’m much more interested in building geniune people power–that benefits all the people.
Makes you wonder if Markos called in a few favors, doesn’t it?
I don’t think so. I think it’s just another example of the whole insular club mentality. People aren’t even aware that they’re doing it. It just “goes without saying” that the people Boehlert considers worthy of being profiled by the Washington Post just happen to be people he considers his peers.
Or maybe I said that backwards. Not sure.
But I agree with Maryscott’s comment here:
Bottom line for me–I just ain’t all that impressed with a call to “give liberal bloggers their due”, if you really only mean “those who are in the inner circle”.
Yeah, I think he did.
BTW- Duncan is a friend of mine and I know the story on blogroll amnesty day. And it had nothing to do with Markos. Duncan wanted to redo his blogroll and get rid of some old blogs that weren’t being updated or that he no longer enjoys, or that he just didn’t like. And he wanted to do it all at once.
Why Markos seized on that decision to do his own blogroll changes is anyone’s guess, but it wasn’t coordinated in any way.
I decided to add all the active blogs that Markos and Duncan took off their blogrolls, but that was just in solidarity with the smalled blogs. It was not a critique of Duncan’s decision.
I know it had nothing to do with Markos, who took advantage of the opportunity when he saw it.
But I maintain that Atrios has behaved badly in his own right. Not going to rehash all of it, but he has.
And I stand by this conclusion…
I don’t enjoy the “game” of politics.
I have no desire to become a pundit or consultant or kingmaker or whatever.
Whatever activism I may be involved in necessarily takes place in a very narrow window of free time, and, when the day is done, a limited amount of patience and energy. In addition to the usual things most families face, my husband and I have been in an ongoing struggle for almost a decade to secure appropriate education and services for our son who has Asperger’s Syndrome.
By the time I get around to blogging, I have a very small amount of patience left for bloggers who act like jerks. And, I understand that he is your friend, but Atrios, like Markos, has been a jerk to a lot of us.
well…maybe he has been a jerk to some people. I don’t really know. He is the furthest thing from a jerk in real life.
But I’m not out to defend Duncan from all charges. I just want to reiterate that he isn’t really the author of the blogpurge. That has been unfairly attributed to him.
A sensitive human being would not have followed that up only a couple weeks later with a post entitled “Why your blog sucks”. Ugh–I really don’t want to go there again. But Atrios has been a jerk to me, just in case you’re not aware of that.
http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=15275
By the way, over a month ago I wrote a very polite note asking to have the Independent Bloggers’ Alliance added to the blogroll here. I suppose it’s possible you never received it. I really didn’t want to ask publicly, but it’s so hard to know with e-mail whether someone is blowing you off or if something just got lost in the “tubes”.
I can’t always live up to my own highest standards, but I do try to assume the benign explanation, because stuff happens, and I want people to give me the benefit of the doubt. So I’d better try to do the same for others.
If you can send it again I will look at it. Just today I finally broke down and erased 700 unread emails. I just can’t read them all, and that may be what happened.
Sent.