The blog world today resembles a playground full of third graders, with both sides stamping their feet and shouting “Is not!” “Is so!”
Of course they’re tussling over the implications of news accounts (here, here, here and here) about FBI documents detailing charges by prisoners that the Koran was abused by guards at the Guantanamo Bay military prison, including at least one allegation of flushing the holy book down a toilet.
Oddly enough, bloggers of all political stripes view the report as vindication for their own pre-set notions. (Who’da thunk it?)
So, is Newsweek redeemed?
Michelle Malkin, in a shocking development, says “No way!” And, she adds, forget what that kid Kos thinks.
John Podhoretz is in Malkin’s Corner. He says it’s worth considering the source of the allegations: “These are sociopaths we’re talking about here,” he says, casting a broad net over a group of detainees about whom he has no knowledge. (Yup — third grade pretty much describes it.)
On the other side of the playground is John Cole, who thinks Newsweek has been vindicated and suggests that conservatives revise their media-bias talking points.
Watching the scrum from the sidelines is Jeff Jarvis, who observes this about Koran abuse: “This will yield another round of political, media, ideological, and ethnic nya-nyas on both sides. Meanwhile, I wonder, is anybody in Iraq preparing a report on beheading abuse and Muslim-Muslim murder, otherwise known as ‘human abuse?'”
Michelle Malkin also takes some heat from Garrett Graff at FishbowlDC. Malkin quoted journalism professor Ralph Hanson in a recent column on the Newsweek flap — except, it turns out, she had never spoken with him and skewed his comments. Hanson penned a column about the experience. His column, writes Graff, “is a good cautionary tale about how journalism is being changed by the idea that everything on the web is fair game for others’ use — or misuse as the case may be.”
Juan Cole takes note of a Wall Street Journal article by our favorite numbers guy, Carl Bailik, who’s measuring the impact of blogs today.
The reason that’s important? Advertising, of course. (You’re surprised?)
Writes Cole:
As I see it, the problem for advertisers is that blogging appears to be a form of narrow-casting. They like broadcasting. You place an ad on even a low-ranking cable television show like “Star Trek Enterprise” (while it was still limping along) and about 3 million people see it every week. You place an ad on even a popular weblog like MyDD and Blogads says that it has 146,000 page views a week.
The answer, according to Cole: “[N]etworked ads (which I prefer to call blog-casting).” Liberal bloggers are already doing it.
Finally, Arthur Silber at Light of Reason picks up a column from one of our favorite MSM-ers, Molly Ivins, on an anti-gay marriage bill in the Texas legislature. Ivins, in turn, knows exactly when to step aside and let her subject wax eloquent.
–Susan Q. Stranahan
Susan Q. Stranahan wrote for CJR.