Revenge of the Empire part II

A month or so ago I predicted we’d start to see some backlash from resentful journalists annoyed by upstart bloggers.

It was OK to topple Trent Lott (aiding and abetting an aged racist) and Howell Raines (an autocratic, egocentric editor) but becoming a media bigshot yourself and going after CBS News’s anchor Dan Rather… well, that’s not done.

So today, we’ve got one of Rather’s colleagues, the “chief political writer” for CBSNews.com, cobbling together a story that, within the narrative of criticizing blogger bias, misportrays key facts about blogger Duncan Black and impugns him for unethical behavior… without ever having checked the facts with Black, or for that matter, the other bloggers mentioned in the story.

Plenty of other people get quoted, but not the people impugned. Hmm, can you smell a grudge? Sloppy, stupid and probably actionable. See Black’s response.

Speaking of grudges, read the CBS article again: are you surprised to hear a lawyer working for the newspaper industry muse: “Ultimately, I think, the decision will have to come down to whether the public will be allowed to decide whether bloggers are credible or whether some regulation needs to occur.’

The argument is then made (or tortured) that because newspapers “compete” they are less biased, and therefore not subject to curtailment of their first amendment rights. Ahh, yes, corporations have first amendment rights, but individual Americans may not. WHAT?

Here’s a dissection of last month’s blogs-are-bad article.