About four weeks ago, I posted a diary late at night concerning my personal boycott of cable news and asked DK readers
Is it time to end the boycott?, focusing on specifically modifying it to allow watching of Keith Olbermann's "Countdown".
It got 14 comments--more than any diary I've ever had--but I never had time to respond to it and, well, one doesn't think of 14 as many when one sees diaries with hundreds of comments daily. I figured not many people noticed.
Apparently somebody did.
I was reading the
Detroit News website for stories on the collapse of the hated Yankees at the hands of the Tigers and noticed, in a corner concerning new AP news stories was an article entitled
Olbermann News Commentaries Target Bush. Figured it was worth a read.
In the middle of the piece, there was a short paragraph:
Olbermann has become a hero to Bush opponents, who distribute video files and transcripts of his commentaries. One poster on the Daily Kos who's been trying to spread his own four-year boycott of cable news wondered: "Is it time to modify the boycott to allow for Keith's show `Countdown' - and only his show?"
It feels strange to be quoted anonymously in an AP article. (Admittedly, it's more a personal boycott than one I'm trying to spread, but that's a minor detail.) What amazes me is that the author dug up this diary (already archived) that came through late at night, with few comments and little notice. This took effort for the author to find, I suspect.
And that means that reporters, media in general, are reading us. Frequently, and deeper than one would have expected. And, from the direction some of the news has taken recently, perhaps they're learning from us as well.
There's two morals to be taken here. First: don't worry about how many people read or recommend a diary as much as how well it's written or states your ideas. I'm not sure my diary was particularly good, but it stated a concept that AP found interesting and worth noticing. Recommends are cool, but they aren't everything.
The second moral is that I should have responded to the few readers that found the piece and given them the ending to the story.
Yes, I'm watching "Countdown" now when I can, which is a few times a week. The poll backed doing so in the diary, but what finally convinced me was that my parents, old line DFLers, had high praise for the show. I'm watching his show and enjoying cable news and learning from it too; the fact that neither was happening was why I bailed in the first place. I figure it's worth an hour a night to get some information and some entertainment, which is what Keith provides consistently.
Many thanks to all of you that responded and, perhaps, helped the diary get noticed. You deserved a response sooner and I'm happy to give one to you now.
And thanks to all of you watching his show. Apparently, the national media is noticing.