| I don't disagree with Pogie on very much at all. Yet, today I find myself in that very unenviable position.
Jenna Cederberg of the Missoulian penned an article about the newest darling of the Montana online right, Treasure State Politics. (Sorry, Andy.) Pogie posted on the Twitter that he was uncomfortable with the fact that Jenna did not also mention, promote or show the opposition to TSP being the liberal Montana Missoula blogs, most notably 4 & 20.
Pogie tweets:
Just wondering if the @missoulian has ever written a feature about its good local blog?
The "good" is questionable, but obviously the Missoulian did write a feature about a local blog.
Pogie continues:
@jennacederberg Confused about your story today about TSP. Seems odd not to mention a single liberal Missoula blog in the piece.
Why? The opposition to TSP is not in Missoula. It's made very clear in the article that TSP stands in opposition to the Montana Cowgirl Blog. Only in the FOX-newsian sense would it make any difference to set a false opposition between TSP and 4 & 20 Blackbirds, or other Missoula blog.
When Jenna asked if Pogie was confused or disappointed, Pogie's response was:
@jennacederberg Maybe I'll settle on surprised. :) 4and20 blackbirds, which is also local to MSO, has so much more traffic and influence.
The traffic part remains open to question, and completely beside the point. That reminds me of all the arguments had in the Montana online about how most comments means most traffic and import, all of which is really kind of crap. The influence part is actually significant, but it was dealt with in the article itself:
"In Montana it's very difficult (to keep a conservative blog) because we have blogs like Montana Cowgirl," James said. That anonymously written blog has previously been traced to the Capitol complex computer system, but the governor's office has denied any knowledge of the blogger's identity.
"I mean, how do you compete with insider information by the people that are making the information?" James said. "I think that the true answer to that was that (conservative information on blogs) just wasn't articulated in a manner people wanted to read. I didn't think the arguments had enough beef behind it."
Notice a couple of things. Jenna supports a narrative that has yet to be proven, and still points to the actual opposition that James is concerned about. Any call for 'fair and balanced' coverage of blogging that mentions 4 & 20 Black birds' is kind of silly in the venue of which this column is written in.
Let's be clear about a couple of things. It's not "web log". It's weblog. An article about a wingnut blog does not require discussion of every other blog in the same local. Pointing out that the Montana Cowgirl blog is run anonymously does not favor mention of 4 & 20 Blackbirds when most of those folk also blog anonymously. They just haven't had the press crawl up their ass quite as much. "Influence" among bloggers is always open to question, until someone comes up with a metric by which it can be measured. |
