Everybody’s spittin’ mad over at WashingtonPost.com over the launch of a conservative blog called (what else?) Red America, hosted by prominent political blogger Ben Domenech, who runs his own blog called RedState (think red state vs. blue state from past election coverage, not fascist vs. commie).
The Washington Post newspaper is widely considered a “liberal” newspaper, though its writers often deny it. Before you think this idea comes from conservative radio hosts, I’ll harken back to junior year with the Close Up Foundation in D.C. where I was informed there were two papers in town: The Washington Times for the Republicans; and the Washington Post for the Democrats.
Whatever the newspaper’s proclivities, both the paper and the website are quick to highlight that they are not one and the same. In fact, employees for each publication don’t seem to get along. Regardless of who’s shouting “liberal!” or “neo-con!” the paper’s reputation has carried over to the website, even if the supposed liberal camp doesn’t recognize it.
Conservatives, as you might imagine, welcomed the new blog and viewed it as an admission of guilt from the Post that it has been a bit slanted over the years and this was its way of making up for it.
The official stance came from political reporter Tom Edsall:
“I am told that this is part of the Post’s web operation’s efforts to provide diverse views.”
A large portion of readership, whom many have termed “liberals” or “moonbats,” don’t like it one bit. Edsall, who was trying to run a chat room called “The Post Politics Hour” to discuss the latest D.C. buzz, was berated with questions and outrage over Domenech’s new sounding post.
Here are a couple of comment samples:
“Can we assume that you will provide an equal opportunity to the left side of the blogosphere by granting a prominent left-wing blogger a column as well? The Post could at least pretend to give some kind of equal voice to the left.”
Looks like not everyone’s aware of the Post’s reputation.
“Can you ask those people above your paygrade to reconsider their decision to hire a rabid republican to “balance” Dana Millbank? There is no balance there.”
Edsall manages a witty response here:
“Many of us do believe Dana is rabid,” he said.
What’s the point? I have no idea. I just thought it was an interesting tale of two pundits. But if we want to get academic, we can say it’s a good illustration of the reach, power, and inflammatory nature of blogs.
Well, I suppose it’s an illustration of many other things as well (like how to get more eyeballs to your website).
Let’s start a fire here, too, why don’t we? What do you think about this topic? Everybody get their gloves and mouth guards. I want a clean fight at SyndicationPro.
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