Philadelphia Daily News | 07/20/2006 | And what about 'the angry right'?: "Unfortunately, most journalists and pundits are only vaguely familiar with how the blogosphere works. They don't understand the difference between a blogger and someone who posts comments on a blog, for instance - which is in some ways analogous to the difference between a reporter and someone who writes letters to the editor.So where have these "reprorters" been for the last five years? How could they not know? Isn't it their job to ask questions and get to the bottom of the story? Keyboard. Google. Enter/Return. Pretend like it's a magic typewriter that answers your questions by appearing on a screen instead of paper. With pictures if you need them. Makes me wonder. Do they even have computers? Or curiosity? Are all their stories so poorly researched? No wonder readership of newspapers is declining. Maybe it's the quality of the writing.
They don't appreciate that there are millions of bloggers, most of whom have tiny audiences, but there are some bloggers who matter more than others.
And most of all, they look at the blogosphere through the same prism they use to look at politics more generally, the one that says that extremism from the right is merely clever, witty rhetoric, whose practitioners deserve a megaphone to spread their views, while any sign of aggressiveness on the left signals a worrisome decline in civility and must be condemned and deprived of the media oxygen that might lend it any legitimacy.
The point is not that there's no one on the left who's angry - or even who says despicable things.
But if you want to find a liberal who threatens someone's life, you have to troll the Internet to locate somebody who threw up a comment on someone else's blog, or maybe someone who has a blog read by a dozen or so people.
On the other hand, where do you have to look to find conservatives who toss off hateful bon mots and who advocate violence against their political opponents (or anyone perceived to have crossed the Bush administration)?
You look on the cover of Time or the 'Today' show, both of which have featured the repellent Ann Coulter. You go to a lavishly funded right-wing organization like the Horowitz Freedom Center, whose leader, David Horowitz, is a near-constant presence on Fox News, where he can explain the nefarious linkage of liberalism that ties Roger Ebert to Ayman al-Zawahiri. (I'm not kidding. Horowitz put together a bizarre Web site called 'Discover the Networks' showing these kinds of links, a disturbing tour of the mind of the conservative conspiracy theorist.)"
It is nice to see an editorial from our side. I don't know if anybody guessed, but this is how I see it also. Now, if only more papers would take up the call maybe tv would also and we might finally have a relatively informed public.
Instead of propaganda, a declining standard of living, a country that is out of touch with the world and no Osama been Forgotten being brought to justice. Alive, dead or by voodoo doll, it doesn't really matter.
Thanks to Skippy for finding this one.
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