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September 08, 2006BELTWAY BLOGROLL
Friday Festival Of Blog Bits
Topic A for much of the blogosphere this week -- and also a hot item in the mainstream media -- has been "The Path to 9/11," a docudrama set to air on ABC come Sunday and Monday. Critics argue that the story is biased and innacurate, and they are seeking changes to it.
I've not written anything about the controversy for three reasons: 1) I'm too busy in my day job, and the story is developing too quickly for me to follow closely; 2) The Hotline's Blogometer here at National Journal has done a great job of tracking the blogosphere's interest in and impact upon the story; and 3) the fight is over a movie, and my goals at Beltway Blogroll are to track the impact of blogs on policy, politics and journalism.
That said, the story has taken some political turns that merit a mention in my weekly roundup.
For starters, the Democratic National Committee joined the fray by urging its allies to petition ABC to keep "this propaganda off the air." The DNC also has covered the story extensively at its blog. Then today, Senate Democratic leaders sent a critical letter to ABC parent company Walt Disney about its obligations in using the public airwaves.
"This is nothing less than an implicit threat that if Disney tries to meddle in the U.S. elections on behalf of the Republicans, they will pay a very serious price when the Democrats get back in power, or even before," John Aravosis wrote at Americablog. "This raises the stakes incredibly for Disney."
Matt Stoller of MyDD also created another of his "open letter" blogs, resurrecting for the docudrama fight a strategy he has used when criticizing the media.
One of the more curious elements of the story was ABC's apparent decision to release copies of the docudrama to Republican-oriented bloggers and media outlets but to deny requests from Democratic blogs for advance copies. Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice cited those actions as evidence of how political the story has become.
"If you have conservative bloggers getting preview DVDs of the ABC film, and no liberal bloggers getting preview DVDs, you now have an ideological product that will 'lose' a segment of not just the blogosphere but the American public," he wrote. "If you have Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talkers hyping the film and saying how great and factually correct it is, and some former members of the Clinton administration insisting it is not entirely factual and charging it takes dramatic liberties ... then you have a product that is going to lose a large chunk of the American public."
Enough about that. Here are more blog bits from the week:
-- Late last month, the Federal Election Commission declined to grant an exemption for "grassroots lobbying" to a campaign finance rule that prohibits paid broadcast advertisements criticizing congressional incumbents 60 days before an election. The prohibition kicked in yesterday for this fall's election, and some bloggers are irate at what they see as an infringement on free speech.
Noting that mainstream media outlets largely have ignored the story, Andy Roth of The Club For Growth yesterday took the case against the ban public at his group's blog by publishing a roundup of bloggers' opinions. Once the press finally awakens to the story, Roth's entry will be a good place to go for background and to get a sense of the objections to the rule.
-- Last month, Instapundit Glenn Reynolds wisely warned Capitol Hill aides not to send angry e-mails to bloggers. David DiMartino, the communications director to Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, apparently did not get the memo during the recess, so now his snippy e-mails are online at GOPProgress for everyone to read.
-- Reynolds issued another warning to lawmakers this week on one of his favorite topics: earmarks for "pork" projects in federal spending bills. "I think that there will be major backlash if nothing gets accomplished this fall" to curtail them," he said.
-- The House Republican Study Committee recently redesigned its blog, and now GOP lawmakers are becoming regulars there. Tim Chapman of the Heritage Foundation said "this is the real deal ... not press secretaries blogging." Chapman also reported on a blog call by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.
-- Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who is now running for re-election as an indepedent, launched a campaign blog. Emboldened and Personal Democracy Forum took critical looks at it.
-- The growing blog empire being built by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo is adding a new feature to its "collaborative journalism": amateur videos from campaign events to enhance the coverage at Election Central. But blogger Matthew Yglesias has ended his stint with TPMCafe and is back to blogging at his own site. Blog P.I. thinks that was a smart move.
-- Jerome Armstrong had some initial doubts about the new Adwatch project at MyDD, the blog he founded, but he now thinks it's a good idea for Democratic bloggers to critique the campaign advertisements of Democratic candidates. Michigan Republican Mike Bouchard no doubt agrees, so long as the critiques are like the one MyDD ran about Bouchard's foe, Sen. Debbie Stabenow. A Bouchard aide call the analysis of the Stabenow ad "brutal."
-- Leading Democratic political adviser Donna Brazile penned a praiseworthy column about blogs in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. Raw Story has excerpts.
-- Politics and Technology envisions a whole new Google-manufactured world for people who do opposition research to explore online. Bloggers could have a field day with it.
-- Robert Cox of the Media Bloggers Association (of which I am a member) has been talking regularly about blog ethics. That's a topic I cover regularly, too.
From The Working Press, a convention publication of the Society of Professional Journalists: "Cox's hope is that journalists and the mainstream media will give bloggers a chance to grow, develop and weed out the bad. 'Blogs that abuse the trust of the readers will be seen as unreliable,' Cox said." I share his hope.
-- Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan of GOP Bloggers announced a book deal.
-- I recently had a business lunch at Ruby Tuesday's. I used to like going there because of the numerous healthy options on the menu, but they were gone on my last visit. I'm actually on a low-carb diet right now, so I was still able to order a steak and vegetables. Still, I was irritated that it was my only option.
Instapundit and his daughter were even more irritated on their last trip to Ruby Tuesday's. They left -- and then Reynolds blogged about the new, fattening menu. That's not the kind of attention a restaurant needs.
Posted by Danny | 07:17 AM
