Media gets signal input, processes signal, with internal feedback loops for the control system, (editors), processes signal some more, provides signal output or program (information, news and opinion). Signal processing is the analysis, interpretation and manipulation of signals.

Some forms of signal processing: attenuation, modulation, amplification, limiting, gating, distortion, compression, even echo and reverb, etc...

Glenn is processing signal and providing much needed feedback, input back, to the media about processing of the signal they put out.

I wonder if Alter is just angry because Reed may have agreed it was off the record and reported it anyway. I have no particular feeling about Alter one way or the other but this sounds more like anger at Reed over the betrayal of trust than anything else and this formulation is ludicrous...

There's one dimension of the blogosphere that never ceases to amaze me: Some people disbelieve nearly everything they read in the "mainstream media" -- and believe nearly everything they read online. Never mind that the ground-breaking reporting on which they base their opinions often comes from the MSM publications like Newsweek, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.

It depends on your political ideology who you believe and what you believe and it doesn't matter whether it's in the MSM or in the blogosphere and the only exposure I get to TIME, Newsweek, The NYTimes or the WaPo IS the blogosphere. Ask the Iraqis about that "ground-breaking" reporting, Mr. Alter. If more people had listened to the blogosphere, that ground in Iraq need not have been broken based on that fine reportage.

I had no idea that this was part of the business plan. Maybe others were aware of this. It looks like HuffPo wants to position it's image as more of a left leaning Politico than the left wing Drudge.

MediaNewsDaily

Enter Stage Left: Huffington Post Veers Into Original Reporting

by Tom Siebert, Monday, Dec 4, 2006 7:00 AM ET

JOURNALISM JUST GOT MORE POLITICAL. For the second time in as many weeks, a popular print reporter covering politics has jumped to a virtually new address.

Online political news and celebrity gossip blog The Huffington Post, the left-leaning alternative to the right-wing Drudge Report, has hired Melinda Henneberger as political editor. A former reporter for The New York Times, Henneberger was a contributing editor to Newsweek on sabbatical, writing a book about women voters.

The site's founder and namesake, author and political provocateur Arianna Huffington, says Henneberger--whose debut column ran Saturday--is the first of several new hires, following August's infusion of $5 million in venture capital from Softbank Capital and Greycroft Partners.

"Melinda will have the purview to hire reporters to cover Congress and the '08 race in depth," Huffington says. "We will report from the campaign trail, include video, and make the site increasingly interactive."

Huffington says one goal for the site is to host an online debate between the presidential candidates in 2008, "so they don't both have to be in one place, and can take questions from the general populace." The site will also expand its coverage of women's issues and publish longer, in-depth investigative reporting pieces "with attitude," she says.

"We've gotten a lot of leads on stories we would have loved to chase, but didn't have the staff to follow up," Huffington says. "We want to be chasing stories like war profiteering, one of the greatest crimes of all time, where even people in favor of the war should be alarmed because so many companies are making unbelievable profits over the war."

The Huffington Post launched in May 2005, and currently gets about 2.5 million unique visitors a month. It also has advertisers, including JCPenney, Vonage, Netflix and DishTV.

The Henneberger hire comes on the heels of last week's announcement that two political reporters for The Washington Post, John Harris and Jim VandeHei, left the influential newspaper to join Allbritton Communications, where they will launch a Web-based multimedia news venture.

Tom Siebert is vice president of corporate communications at Initiative North America. (tom.siebert@us.initiative.com)

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=51961

Essentially, everything I mentioned is a filter, either linear or non-linear, in the sense of signal processing...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_filter

I think it's a great metaphor or framework for explaining this to people, like JimC, who may not understand what it is Glenn does or is trying to do.

JimC,

I do recall Glenn having covered this at UT. We may not agree with what Glenn chooses to focus on and write about. If we don't, we can not read or give him a piece of our mind. It is one of the truisms about blogging... Someone is always going to tell you how to do it "better". I know he finds it particularly annoying. Glenn isn't a reporter in the sense of a guy buurning up shoe leather covering hard news. He's become more of a legal and media analyst. He's got his own niche. Take it or leave it. When it comes to legal issues he is particularly well-suited and he is fast becoming one of the best at what Howie Kurtz is supposed to be doing. Jonathan Alter was smart enough to not mention Glenn by name.

Bepop is a filter or signal processor...

He's like a harmonic equalizer/flanger/wah-wah pedal.

Journalism jihad ....

Just to be clear, we conservatives may voice dismay at your methods but applaud your efforts to dismantle the MSM. Have at it with our blessing. Heh.

-- shooter242

After having been called out for defending the same "Donkey Media" he claims to want to hang for treason, Shooter realizes that 30 years of labor, and billions of dollars spent, to create a a very low signal to noise ratio in the channels of public information is about to become a wasted effort.

If this was about what you seem to suggest it was, I'd agree with you. I refer you to rollotomasi's post about Jay Rosen's take. That's definitive and I'd suggest you read it.