There seems to be an interesting dichotomy at play with this new news entity, The Politico. Apparently manned by seasoned professional journalists, but published entirely in the on-line world, where historically different rules dominate regarding partisanship.

I think we expect them to fall into the normal left/right division we find with most on-line, non-mainstream, not "old media" websites. And they raced to a fast start with a number of stories that appeared to have a right-ward ideological lean, and were promoted on the largest traffic "accumulator" (I love that term- more on that later) website, The Drudge Report.

Plenty of evidence to question Mr. Allen and Mr. Harris. It's proper that you did and encouraging that they answered. I will take Mr. Harris at his word and look toward the future and hopefully groundbreaking journalism without an ideological bent. The web needs just just an independent source and I commend their efforts.

On the subject of journalistic independence and the role of journalists in our political system. Your criticism of The Politico, while resulting in a lucid and responsible response, also included Mr. Harris' use of a common defense that "the questioner is an ideologue". I believe that response is invalid and merely a deflection.

I don't believe you attempt to hide your partisan feelings, I know I don't. And I've written a number of similar letters to national journalists on the very same subject. Most are ignored, but the few that are responded to, are the ones where I am able to point out a lack of proper balance in the article.

Or in more cases, a imbalance of perspective that causes an ideological bent to the article I question. That imbalance or lack of balance, can be due to weak reporting, superficial understanding of the subject matter by the reporter, complete misunderstanding of the subject by the reporter, lazy reporting that relies heavily on biased ideological sources, or logical fallacies hidden in the article substituting as balance, inserted by sources, or by the journalist or editors.

The balance discussion is always what gets these journalists up in arms. For their professional ethics requires them to attempt to tell both sides of controversial stories. If they do so poorly, them they have imparted an ideological lean to their reporting. They need this pointed out, if they truly want to be better professionals. But it irritates most of them. The false balance we see commonly, is a valid criticism of the Bush Administration, followed by a completely false response by an Administration spokes-person, which is inserted without comment by the journalist.

Back to accumulators. That's almost what Kyle Sampson testified was his role in the "Justice 8" firings. He said his role was just to "aggregate" viewpoints on who should be fired. It's not like he had a mind of his own our anything.

Aren't Mr. Allen and Mr. Harris also acting as accumulators or aggregaters of information? They say they don't impart their own opinions or ideology as professional journalists. So aren't they really the accumulators? And isn't Drudge just an aggregater of accumulators?

Perhaps Mr. Harris should be a bit less dismissive of the accumulators/aggregaters in this world. For he is one himself.

Today's article is absolutely on point as to the failure of the press to get it across to the public about how Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. Bush is still hinting at Saddam's alleged role in 9/11 in speeches he make now but I have yet to see a press release that points out the distortion implicit in these speeches. Fortunately, the bloggers have taken up the duty to correctly inform the public and maybe we will see the day when the MSM have had inroads into their audience and begin the job of keeping the public informed.

John

per sysprog below.

The report of the White House denouncing Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats for planning a trip to Syria is widely disseminated through the mass media and the blogosphere (thanks to The Politico and its handmaiden, Drudge) on the very day that a more obscure report appears (in Bloomberg and a handful of other places) that some Republicans are in Syria right now attempting to do who-knows-what with the Syrians, Our Blood Enemies Since Dubya Said So.

A question is: Why?

More to the point, why are right wing news "placements" given much greater play? Something we note is true throughout the American media at every stage and level, in practically every outlet, even the so-called "lefty" ones, where damn-all if the same right wing "placement" isn't prominently featured -- and criticized.

It's a curiosity, given the fact that for years and years and years now, there has been a huge and hungry underserved news market, ie: so-called "liberals." Or rather the reality based community.

Often the question of why there is such an overwhelming emphasis on right wing "news" -- ie: ideologically slanted or patently propagandistic pieces (such as the aforementioned White House denunciation of Mrs Pelosi's trip to Syria) with one word: Money. Or: Ratings.

Yet with mass media revenues declining and public attention wandering as it is, Money and Ratings can't be the real answers to this dilemma.

No, one engages in propaganda and ideologically based "news" for the purpose of molding and controlling public perceptions and opinion, regardless of cost or attention paid at any given moment.

Scaife and Moon knew this ages ago: it really does not matter how much it costs to run a propaganda shop, nor does it matter whether the Masses (in any great numbers) buy into the "news" and propaganda being spewed. What matters is that the propaganda get "out there," and that opinion leaders and other newsies see it and are influenced by it, even if they dispute it initially. Even disputes are valuable to the propagandists.

We see in Harris and Allen and Wolffe and Stengal (and many, many, many others) some of the payoffs of this long term investment. They all completely misinterpret and misrepresent public opinion regarding -- say -- the Iraq WarAndOccupation, or the US Attorney Miscalculation or (as I heard on Washington Week last night) The Meaning of the Election Last November ("voters want Republicans and Democrats to work together, right?"). Whether they do it with full knowledge, or have simply fallen into a bad habit of mind, I don't know. But they do it, routinely, brazenly, and with no consequences to themselves -- except perhaps a little "bonus" in their check.

The Public, to their credit, ain't buyin' it no more.

This is the Big Problem with American Media at the moment. After all these years of propaganda from the right, the Media opinion leaders and many toilers in the fields have become convinced (almost brainwashed) that the propaganda and ideologically-based right wing "news" is either Truth or What The People Want to Hear. The Public, for its part, is rejecting this crap pretty much wholesale. Yet the Investment the Media has in this charade is so heavy, they can't shift to the New Reality Based News Model.

There is still very little pushing them to do so. Yet The People are becoming more and more restive and outraged. They know they have been lied to, and they know they have been manipulated to support something terrible, and they are beginning to realize they've been robbed, too (which may turn out to be the key realization). They know they cannot rely on Traditional Media to tell the truth, or anything even close to it, and they turn to whatever they can find that expresses even a trace of the truth and outrage they feel.

Thus we see Olbermann gaining by leaps and bounds. We see huge traffic at the so-called Lefty blogs (the aggregate is higher than Drudge and its righty ilk). We saw amazing potential with Air America, and saw the plug get pulled in many markets where the format was doing well (why do they keep pulling the plug on the first or second most listened to talk radio station in the market? I thought Money and Ratings were the drivers.)

The Big Media, though shrinking, can't fathom what's going on -- but they think they know and can keep control of it. So did the denizens of Versailles.