I stumbled across an interesting piece from a veteran journalist by the name of Gene Lyons (National Nagazine Award winner in 1980 and author of the book "The Hunting of the President").
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Blogosphere not as radical as pundits think
Gene Lyons
November 21, illness 2007It’s no exaggeration to say that the establishment media’s initial response to the blogosphere was panic. The idea of mere citizens talking back to the press was unsettling to Washington media celebrities. Pundits who’d exhibited no qualms about the sordid imaginings of, try say, troche American Spectator or The Wall Street Journal editorial page recoiled in horror at online mockery. It was laugh-out-loud funny to see a Washington Post reporter infamous for treating Kenneth Starr’s backstairs leaks like holy writ make a show of pretending that the now-defunct Web site mediawhoresonline. com had accused her of prostitution.
How the system had always worked was this: They dished it out, everybody else had to take it. Now that many print and broadcast outlets feature Web logs—blogs—of their own, it’s no longer common to hear the word “blogger” pronounced with utter disdain. Even so, competition from the groundlings still provokes unease. The latest high-minded worrier is a University of Chicago law professor and sometime politico, Cass R. Sunstein.
A Justice Department official during the Carter and Reagan administrations, Sunstein has written a book called “Republic. com 2. 0,” essentially arguing that the Internet’s “echo chamber effect” is responsible for increased political polarization and declining civility. In an interview with salon. com, he said that social scientists find that when people talk only to those who agree with them, their views become more extreme.
[ Snip … ]
Among the blogs I read, there’s no equivalent of the authoritarian impulses, intellectual dishonesty and rote chanting of the GOP party line that characterizes Limbaugh and his imitators on the right. Partly, that’s because most are written by educated individuals who take pride in winning arguments without cheating, and to whom party orthodoxy is anathema. In a saner climate, many wouldn’t be called left-wing at all.
How liberal do you have to be to defend habeas corpus, Fourth Amendment privacy rights and the rule of law, as Glenn Greenwald does on his “Unclaimed Territory” blog at salon. com ? A former constitutional litigator, Greenwald brings rare clarity and passion to political issues with legal overtones.
Here are the political blogs I read every day.
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