The Kos-TNR face off provides some real insight into the problem that the blogosphere has with The New Republic. It is clear the TNR has become unhinged with its ever expanding criticism of the
blogging world which culminated into a charge that the
blogosphere is fascistic. And why would the blogosphere be so fascistic? Evidently, it's because Markos' background was
chilling and it made him an incipient fascist. Wow.
Let's agree that the blogosphere can be loud, rude, partisan, mean, and even unfair (depending on the day and/or the individual writing). And let's agree that Markos has not been very nice to the TNR with his assertions that it has become increasingly irrelevant. But we can also agree that the TNR, which after all is supposed to be an important magazine for conveying thoughtful commentary, has gone off the deep end and has proven that it just doesn't understand the criticism it is facing from the blogosphere.
Fascistic? The blogosphere is a huge and very diverse set of people. How can anyone think that it is possible to label the blogosphere by one blog, or a set of blogs or even the set of liberal blogs with this word? Does Seigel really think that the liberal blogosphere is marching in lock step, putting on their jackboots, and organizing to burn books, break windows and throw TNR writers into concentration camps? That's an insane generalization that is simply designed to demonize the "enemy" who evidently are perceived as being angry and dangerous.
What does this say about the TNR, which, after all, is an organization that can be more precisely labeled with some specificity based on the actual writings of the people they publish? It seems clear to me that the TNR is not only doing a spectacularly poor job of reporting on the blogosphere, but the magazine's contributions to providing context and understanding for their readers have devolved into a clueless and frankly unreasonable participation in a flame war.
Let's look at the recent pieces that have been published in TNR that cover their perception of the blogosphere. First there was that piece by Lizza Ryan dripping with distain contempt in his coverage of the YearlyKos Conference, where he purposely took words out of context to make it seem that General Wesley Clark's aid also found the rabble a belittling experience for the General. Add to this his personal attacks on the big name bloggers for their justified criticisms of the media as well as on other bloggers who were according to Ryan rude to the politicians. (See teacherken's remarks which show this was another one of Ryan's lies.) What we are left with is a mean-spirited and frankly dishonest article from someone who is a senior editor of the TNR.
Then there was the gotcha attack on Jerome in order to attack the real TNR enemy, Markos. Obviously, Jason Zengerle, was thrilled to find another reason to show that the leaders of the blogosphere had feet of clay. Yet, it seems that Jason's desire to be right overtook his journalistic responsibility to check the facts. If Dan Rather and his producer could be destroyed by forgeries passed on to them, what will this affair do to Zengerle's and the TNR's reputation?
Finally, TNR owner, Marty Peretz decided it was necessary to see what all the kerfluffel was about and he finally read the DailyKos and decided that the problem with Markos is he's illiterate. In his dismissive post on the rantings of Kos, he finds it demeaning to have to defend the magazine (where the cool-kids go to read unorthodox thoughts) from Markos. Okay. Does that mean he is just peachy keen with what's going on in his own camp?
So what about the criticism that the blogosphere has expressed about The New Republic? Here's a quick summary of that criticism:
- TNR has never come to grips that their support for Bush's war of choice was wrong and that many in the blogosphere were right. They have never forgiven us for that.
- TNR has a senior editor who wrote an dishonest piece about YearlyKos which seemed only to be designed to put the netroots and bloggers in their place.
- TNR has a writer that used a forgery to make a claim. When are they planning to acknowledge that fact and correct it?
- TNR allowed one of their writers to label the entire blogosphere fascistic based on some ill-defined theory about the "sanity" of Markos. Isn't that just embarrassingly wrong?
- TNR's owner thinks the problem is that Markos is illiterate and all the people that connect up at the Daily Kos are part of his nuthouse. Obviously, Peretz has never been interested enough to see what was happening in the blogosphere, or understand that there might be people outside the beltway that have legitimate problems with his magazine and the increasingly strange rants coming from his magazine.
This past week, TNR racked up a bunch more legitimate criticism and the owners and the editors should respond to it honestly and without their self-righteous chip on their shoulders that they should not be questioned because they are more legitimate than those of us in the blogosphere.
[Ed: Hopefully, this diary isn't so similar to Hunter's fine diary on this topic that it breaks the rules about multiple postings on one topic.]
Cross posted at PacificViews