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I'll take that as a.....?

Posted at 8:30 AM on April 6, 2006 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)

The blogosphere -- well, a little slice of it -- is aghast at three questions that I asked the other day as a result of a year's worth of warnings from former FEC Chair Bradley Smith.

Bogus Gold, for example, gets a high, deep, spiraling punt that's pushing the returner back..back...back:

Bob Collins, MPR's official political blogger, and therefore (I assume) MPR's employee, and therefore paid at least in part by my freakin' tax dollars, is questioning MY financial independence?! Get your stinking hand out of my back pocket before you say that again, hombre!
Of course, Bob, being a lefty, may think that government funding is actually the best way to keep political influence out of political campaign coverage. Rigggghhht. And, much like MPR's website claims, they're perfectly objective in their publicly funded coverage. That's two whole posts in themselves, so I'll just call b*llsh*t and move on as we agree to disagree.

Anyway, he only sort of insinuates against me personally, since he reads KvM which I write for (umm... every now and then, anyway). Outside of that I don't even make his list of blogs he reads every day. Guess I'll just shrivel up and freakin' die. Except the non-regular reading is mutual, so I suppose he gets a pass.

By the way, I had no idea the guy wrote for KvM; I thought Gary did all the work over there. And actually he is on my list of blogs I read every day, but the list I provided was the list of folks in the ONLY POLITICS section of my reader. Bogus Gold is a good read but when you post commentary about American Idol, sorry, you don't make the "politics only" section. Unless Kenny Rogers' poor facelift has now made it as a campaign issue, which it probably should from what I hear.

Anyway, we'll put that down as a "get lost, and take your poodle," and figure the translation from what I actually said to what he thinks I meant is a freebie. (I'll have to log in later to find out what I really just said).

Over at Residual Forces, we have incoming fire...

But I am tired of the constant insinuations that conservative bloggers and the Republicans are up to no good. (Remember it was him that had his undies in a bunch over the stupid Marriage CD) The guy is a biased hack, and he is doing nothing more than phishing for someone stupid enough to admit their undying devoting and absolute servitude towards Karl Rove.

Meanwhile, a kinder, gentler approach to the notion that a medium (blogs) that ushered in the era of "transparency" should consider being, well, transparent, from Minnesota Campaign Report.

Bob, I hope you'll re-post this, including previous responses, once it falls off your front page. Lefties and righties frequent your page pretty universally, and it's both important and interesting to keep this disclosure effort going.

The issue has obviously aroused a passion not seen since the great Marriage CD controversy, another issue that -- coincidentally or not -- revolved around telling people what you're doing and letting them decide whether it means anything.

And the great irony, of course, is the blogosphere, rightly so, developed because of a guiding principle of transparency.

In an age where we're told that blogs will have more impact on politics in this country, what's wrong with asking whether content is bought and paid for or is independent information?

Is asking the question now considered a partisan attack? Gosh. Why?

Comments (10)

I can't understand why people (even more confusingly, seemingly only righties) are getting consternated over this. It wasn't an accusatory question; I was more than happy to answer it and many others have felt the same way. In the now-assured absence of regulations forcing bloggers to report everything, this is a question and an issue that bloggers must investigate and enforce amongst ourselves.

Posted by North Star Politics | April 6, 2006 10:05 AM

"By the way, I had no idea the guy wrote for KvM"

I get that from Gary too. And for the record, I wouldn't put my blog on any "politics only" list either. Which hasn't stopped other people from classifying it that way, but whatever.

Most of my pique came from the notion that you framed questions that apply to almost no one in a way implying they apply to many. As I noted, having to repeatedly deny one's blogging work is a front for a deep political conspiracy gets tiresome. Even when the person asking it isn't doing it in a particularly accusatory fashion.

Posted by Doug Williams | April 6, 2006 11:04 AM

Of course, self-disclosure is notoriously inaccurate. If there's any perception that collaboration with parties is bad, will those doing it voluntarily disclose?

Isn't it a bit like pulling up to Franklin and Chicago in a cop car and asking, okay, who's:

1. Selling drugs
2. Carrying drugs
3. Involved with someone selling or carrying

Posted by Charlie | April 6, 2006 11:06 AM

No, it's not Charlie because selling drugs, carrying drugs and being involved with someone selling or carrying drugs is illegal.

Being paid by a campaign isn't illegal. But knowing if information is actually being distributed by a campaign is helpful to determine the quality of information. And the blogs have to live in a world where quality of information matters. Transparency matters.

Look, I'm not sure why everyone is focused on KvM...of course it's an extension of a campaign; the whole goal is to get the guy elected, and they do a good job. If you go to the site expecting unfiltered and contextual information, of course you're not going to find it if it hurts the candidate. Who doesn't get that? That's why focusing on KvM, which the commenters have, doesn't make a lot of sense.

You can't believe everything you read; we know that. The delegate count dispute in the 6th on the candidate Web sites is obviously spun and doctored. So nobody should consider it a source of information.

But blogs are a source of information and, from what we read, are going to be more influential. So wouldn't it be prudent for readers to know which ones are paid to spin the information and doctor the facts?

If you read something on a site that you know is paid to rearrange facts and sand off the truth, then at least you can judge the liklihood that what you're reading is gospel, or whether maybe something was left out. And you can determine whether to keep searching for the missing elements and just use that information as one piece of a puzzle... or whether you decide it's the whole picture.

To use your analogy, it would be more like asking if something is an infomercial or the nightly news.

The question I still have, however, is why is it being treated as a partisan issue? Is there something I don't know about? What is it?

Knowing these things is what puts power in the hands of the people. The irony of some of the reaction to the question, however, is that it occurs in a medium that was SUPPOSED to do that. It was supposed to be the antidote for the alleged "filtering" of information at the hands of the mainstream media (MSM).

I think that's great.

So what's wrong with that? What's so bad about a little honesty?

Posted by Bob Collins | April 6, 2006 11:22 AM

I agree, honesty's good.

A more important question however, is why do bloggers seem to be scooping the mainstream more and more these days?

A while back, the maistream media, including MPR ran stories about "Personal Rapid Transit"or PRT. These PRT stories were at best promotional with a hint of skepticism and some news stories read like a carbon copy of the Taxi 2000 Corporation's press releases.

None of these stories even hinted at the truth and in the years since, the story has disapeared down the media memory hole.

For many years, politicians like Mark Olson, Michele Bachmann and Dean Zimmermann have championed this absurd "technology". This year may be the first year in a long time that PRT bills are not introduced at the capitol.

Will the mainstream news that reported breathlessly on PRT in the past take another look? I doubt it. Editors and journalists don't like to admit that they can be snookered so easy.

That's why I blog about it here: http://dumpmarkolson.blogspot.com and here: http://dumpbachmann.blogspot.com/

Posted by Avidor | April 6, 2006 1:02 PM

By the way, Bob, that punt picture is low.

Posted by North Star Politics | April 6, 2006 1:07 PM

//Bob, that punt picture is low.

I didn't have any pictures of the Gophers recovering a punt. (g)

Posted by Bob Collins | April 6, 2006 2:17 PM

By the way, I probably shouldn't have listed the blogs I happen to check regularly; it looks like those are the only people I'm interested in hearing from. I'm interested in hearing from any blogger from any location -- not just Minnesota. I was just giving an example of the political blogs that are out there and that probably should have been a separate entry somewhere.

Sorry.

Posted by Bob Collins | April 6, 2006 7:20 PM

Bob, to add to what Avidor said, I don't consider myself a journalist. I consider myself as an opinion blogger. But I do think many journalists do way too much parroting press releases - or what's been written in a blog without fact checking.

Posted by Eva Young | April 7, 2006 12:09 AM

I think this is a fair question to ask blogs. Transparency is good. If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it.

Posted by Eva Young | April 7, 2006 12:12 AM

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