Notice how even what you have managed to find is buried deep in these papers.

By contrast, the TANG stories ran on the front page, often. CBS ran a segment or two (remember that memo?!), as I recall.

***

I think you’ve proved my point.

“Please give me links to MSM stories on Kerry’s excellent adventure in Cambodia”

Ok, here’s a few I found (I only searched newspapers):

The war’s over, but not for these brazen snipers; Unfit for Command Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry John E. O’Neill and Jerome R. Corsi Regnery: 216 pp., $27.95; [HOME EDITION]

Michael Parks. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Oct 31, 2004. pg. R.4

Tangling On The Web

Jonathan Miller. New York Times (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Dec 5, 2004. p. 14NJ.1

The Vietnamization of John Kerry; [FINAL Edition]

Charles Krauthammer. The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: Oct 1, 2004. p. A.29

Swift Boat Shootout; [FINAL Edition]

Michael Getler. The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: Aug 29, 2004. p. B.06

Kerry’s Cambodia Whopper; [FINAL Edition]

Joshua Muravchik. The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: Aug 24, 2004. p. A.17

On the internet, there is no hiding.

Important corrolary: Everything is on the internet, even if it doesn’t want to be.

You’re misunderstanding the nature of the blogosphere (hate that word). Nobody reads just one blog. Sure, if I read just one blog and it had no comments section, I would be hearing just one point of view (kinda like when I read the Boston Globe). But that’s not how the internet works.

Let’s consider Glenn Reynolds, who has no comments section. Suppose he says something stupid or wrong. Instantly about 500 bloggers comment on that, in addition to who-know-hiow-many chat boards, so there is PLENTY of healthy (highly visible) conversation about whether he was right or wrong. Many bloggers (like Glenn) also read & respond to email, often posting that exchange as well.

On the internet, there is no hiding.

***

I had a cricket chirping at the end of my last message, but I put it inside those brackets, and so of course it vanished. It’s almost better this way.

Let’s start with the media bias issue. Please give me links to MSM stories on Kerry’s excellent adventure in Cambodia. Or failing that, to the MSM’s coverage of Kerry’s Winter Soldier testimony. Give me links to MSM stories on the SBVT that accurately present the SBVT’s side of the story. Give me links to MSM stories about CBS’s “memo.” Give me links (other than the WSJ) to coverage of the UN’s Oil for Food scandal, including the angles that look bad for the French, Russian, and Chinese governments. I want names. Give me a link to an MSM story on Oil for Food that mentions Pasqua and Galloway, not just Marc Rich.

In all cases, please provide the earlier possible links and compare that to the actual date of the event, demonstrating that the press was covering these stories with the same zeal and interest they showed for Abu Ghraib, TANG, and al Qa Qaa.

This is what your list of links will look like:

“Some of it is frustration, no doubt about it,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Rich Bond, “But there is some strategy to it,” he went on. “I’m a coach of kids’ basketball and Little League teams. If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is `work the refs’ ” – meaning the media. “Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack on the next one.”

Media to the Left! Media to the Right! The GOP, Shooting The Messengers; [FINAL Edition]

Lloyd Grove. The Washington Post (pre-1997 Fulltext). Washington, D.C.: Aug 20, 1992. pg. c.01

“There were days and times and events we might have had some complaints [but] on balance I don?t think we had anything to complain about.” James Baker, quoted in Mark Hertsgaard, On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency, NY: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1988, page 4.

“The truth is, I’ve gotten fairer, more comprehensive coverage of my ideas than I ever imagined I would receive,” Buchanan said. “I’ve gotten balanced coverage and broad coverage–all we could have asked.” Buchanan says his rhetoric is not meant to stir hostilities toward the media. “For heaven sakes, we kid about the liberal media, but every Republican on Earth does that.”

WASHINGTON INSIGHT / Campaign ‘96; [Home Edition]

Los Angeles Times (pre-1997 Fulltext). Los Angeles, Calif.: Mar 14, 1996. pg. 5

“We come with a strong point of view and people like point of view journalism. While all these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We’ve created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It’s a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It’s a great little racket. I’m glad we found it actually.” Matt Labash, 32, is a senior writer with The Weekly Standard, http://journalismjobs.com/matt_labash.cfm, Interview with Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard — May 2003

This I think is the real promise of blogging. It’s something like the idea behind the Open Source movement in software development: the more eyes, the better.

Of course, to be really effective, this has to be an open two-way street, as this blog is, unlike PowerLine or Talking Points Memo which have no Comment options.

A journalist must, of necessity, be a generalist, with no in-depth knowledge of any particular subject. There are specialists to be sure, covering such topics as business or science or religion; but even these are, for the most part, the products of J-schools rather than life experience or quality graduate school educations in the topics they cover.

This is where blogs have it all over the MSM, and why the later must adapt or die.

To hold a “bias” requires intent. We tend to make the MSM bias case slightly backwards. The MSM produces so many obviously biased reports that we induce that the reporters who made them are biased. Moreover, we further reason that there must be something structurally biased about the MSM in that it seems to foster this bias. That is, the bias is institutional.

True or not, and I think that it is, the same argument can’t be made of the blogosphere, and probably never can be. First, there are many biased blogs–both left and right. In fact, I’d say that most blogs are inherently biased in that they succeed or fail based on the ability of the blogger to argue his opinion.

No doubt, many blogs venture into reportage and often this reportage is colored by the blogger’s opinions, but so what? The self correcting feature of the blogosphere tends to make this point moot. Factually challenged partisan hacks are ruthlessly exposed, often within minutes. Hence, those bloggers who prosper (both right and left) tend to get the facts right and naturally use the facts to support their opinions. It’s called argument.

On any given day, I can find multiple sides to most arguments made in the blogoshphere. This is bias? Nope. it’s the free market. I suppose it might be argued that more of the “most popular” blogs tend middle right. And Fox News is also growing in popularity, so what?

Finally, there is no institutional structure in the blogosphere from which to support an institutional bias. Who gives Roger his marching orders? What network exec hired him? And what’s to prevent Josh Marshall from attracting his readers? Only talent.

That’s the key. As was pointed out at the Belmont Club recently, the entry threshhold for blogging is monetarily low, and ultimate success is largely determined by talent–a true meritocracy. Bloggers might foist their personal biases until the cows come home, but there is no structure to protect them or to help them maintain readership. Compare and contrast poor Nick Coleman. The insititutional inertia of the old Star Tribune guarantees him an audience, however shrinking. Bloggers are just one click away from oblivion.

Bias, pshaw!

Blogs, especially center right blogs, are merely a refreshing analytical corrective, as well as de facto proof that educated news hungry readers by the thousands care no longer for many papers. Eventually, a publisher somewhere will get hip to this and get his-her board to appoint an ME who will not tolerate recherche liberal copy being moved.

as to Matt Welch’s argument, he is right, up to a very rapidly arrived at point. If your ideology is finding ideologic bias in others, well, you’ll find it. And that itself is a bias that overwhelms things, like the truth. I think he’s off base in “warning” about bloggers getting checked for bias and factual accuracy–they already are. KOS, Atrios, DU will try and tear apart anything from Fox News, WoT and an RoC blogger.

I think he gets an important fact wrong himself. The NYT correction policy has long been an open joke among NYC based reporters. The NYT will not run a correction unless it is has absolutely nowhere to run or hide. Its laughable.

ANd he largely ignores, however, just how sustained and terrible much of the national press’s reporting has been with regards to tilting left. It simply cannot be dismissed. MW seeks to do an iconoclastic piece on the sins of the left and right. He fails because he does not acknowledge just how utterly skewed the staring points are.