March 14, 2005

Birds of a Feather

Liberal bloggers are "reaching out" to the mainstream media, via a conference call, reports the New York Times.

Mr. Fertik maintains that the blurring of boundaries has benefited left-wing bloggers less than their adversaries on the right, saying that reports posted on conservative blogs more easily make the jump to the main news media. "The way we perceive it," he said, "is that right-wing bloggers are able to invent stories, get them out on Drudge, get them on Rush Limbaugh, get them on Fox, and pretty soon that spills over into the mainstream media. We, the progressives, we don't have that kind of network to work with."

It is probably too early to tell how successful the conference calls have been, although Mr. Fertik said that the audio recording of the first call had been downloaded some 2,000 times. During the second call, held last Tuesday, Brad Friedman, who runs bradblog.com, discussed his investigation into accusations of rigged electronic voting machines - a contentious subject that drew questions from listeners, mostly other bloggers.

Some phoned from far away, including places in Canada, to take part in the call, which lasted more than an hour. Listeners asked if a figure in Mr. Friedman's inquiry had taken a lie-detector test and if any traditional news outlets had picked up the story.

Mr. Friedman's "story" would have generated massive MSM coverage if there was really a story there. Blogs - left or right - can't breathe life into stories that aren't based in reality.