Here are some thoughts from Powerline on the recent CBS story mentioning the South Dakota blogs:
The mainstream media don't have a right to free speech because they're someone special. Everyone has that right. The fact that limitations have been placed on politicial speech by unions and corporations is an exception to the general rule of free political speech. Thus, the New York Times is protected by the First Amendment just like you and me, and not because "the courts have been satisfied with the [newspaper] industry's ability to regulate itself." CBS suggests implicitly--and wrongly--that only the government's "satisfaction" with the blogosphere stands in the way of some ill-defined "regulation" of blogs.
There is a certain irony, of course, in CBS News throwing stones at bloggers and suggesting they may need to be regulated. No one is accusing Lauck or Van Beek of reporting anything that wasn't true, or of fabricating documents. Which raises a fundamental point: There is arguably a certain difference between a partisan who is paid and a partisan who acts solely out of conviction. But that is a relatively subtle difference, and the South Dakota bloggers never denied being partisan. No one reading their blogs could have supposed them to be neutral observers of the Thune-Daschle race.
But what about media organizations like CBS and the New York Times? They pretend to be objective and neutral. But in reality, they are highly partisan--sometimes rabidly so. Key employees of CBS News were so hostile to President Bush that they were willing to publish forged documents to try to bring him down. The Times' Corrections section is an ongoing testimony to the newspaper's tendency to let its political biases get in the way of the facts.
The public is not at risk from those who are obviously and aggressively partisan, but who fail to reveal all aspects of that partisanship. The public is greatly at risk, however, from media outlets who purport to be neutral and reliable, but who trade on the respect they are accorded as fair and nonpartisan sources of information to advance an unstated agenda.
Here are some thoughts from Hugh Hewitt:
So what if Rather, Mapes etc didn't receive a check from Kerry-Edwards 'o4? Did the South Dakota blogs attempt to distort a presidential election using tricked up docs that lasted less than a day under ordinary scrutiny? The Argus Leader's many sins of pro-Daschle bias have been extensively detailed, but never admitted by that paper. The pro-Thune blogs never made any attempt to hide their pro-Thune, anti-Daschle point-of-view, so the public was not deceived as it routinely is as to agenda journalism's biases. Complete disclosure would have been preferable, but that omission isn't anywhere near the sin of undisclosed bias masquerading as "objective" journalism.
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One more thought on the controversy over the Thune campaign contributions to two South Dakota bloggers who were openly pro-Thune: Any critic of these bloggers should also be demanding that all bloggers who hold "fund-raising" support campaigns disclose in detail the sources of their contributions. Among those bloggers who have solicited such funds: Andrew Sullivan and Josh Marshall. Subscription campaigns like the ones run by those two and many others of course carries the possibility that donations will be made on the theory that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." The very first thing one finds at Andrew Sullivan's blog is this:
"PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG!
CLICK HERE TO MAKE A DONATION"I don't think for a moment that either of these writers are for sale, and I wouldn't be bothered if George Soros had sent them both a big fat check. If I know where a blogger is coming from --if his or her genuine point of view has been disclosed-- then the source of support is irrelevant, though, again, prudence would dictate disclosure --and perhaps Andrew and Josh will, as well as any other bloggers who take non-blog ad revenue.
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