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Bin Laden And The Blogosphere

First-tier blogger Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo ridiculed terrorist Osama bin Laden by comparing him with an incoherent "9th-tier blogger".

Ann Althouse, another first-tier blogger, responded by chastising Marshall for his "snobbery." "Plenty of bloggers with small audiences write very well and convey subtle thinking," she said. "How liberal-minded is it to look down on people with less traffic?"

Conservative columnist David Brooks, meanwhile, said this about the transcript of bin Laden's latest video, released online this week: "[Y]ou read this thing, and it's like he's been sitting around reading lefty blogs, and he's one of these childish people posting rants at the bottom the page."

Think Progress is tracking bin Laden/blogger comparisons. A CNN correspondent said he sounds like an "angry blogger," and Political Vindication said bin Laden's words no doubt tickled the ears of Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos. And a Pajamas Media blogger thinks Daily Kos and The Huffington Post might be interested in having bin Laden as a commenter on their sites.

This is what life has come to in our new media world. We have reached the point where the best way to malign the most wanted man on the planet, whether from left or right, is by saying he's like a blogger.

Think about that while you read the rest of this week's blog bits:

-- Snob or not, Columbia Journalism Review thinks Josh Marshall is onto something with Talking Points Memo. The magazine profiles Marshall and his new media empire in its current issue.

I like this blurb: "Marshall often says that he is annoyed by 'blog triumphalism,' which he described in 2004 as 'an unrestrained belief that blogs or similarly situated sites can and should revolutionize all politics and media.' But with his restless institution-building, he has made as good a case as anyone for blogging’s journalistic merits." Marshall probably would say I'm a blog triumphalist, and I couldn't disagree on most days. He is part of the reason.

-- California Republicans are trying to change the presidential election rules for 2008, but bloggers and others in the netroots and doing their best to keep the GOP from "stealing" the election.

-- Some bloggers have worked diligently to make the federal government more transparent, but transparency can be a local blog cause, too. A writer at the Sunlight Foundation is tracking those efforts. Check the first two installments.

-- Yesterday, I mentioned the "Bush Dog Democrats" campaign against moderate House Democrats. The bloggers at Open Left are running the campaign, but plenty of Democratic bloggers in the districts of the lawmakers being targeted aren't too happy about the interference from outsiders.

-- Open Left's Matt Stoller is a bit annoyed by media coverage of bloggers and the netroots. He cited two "really, really stupid" articles in particular, saying they are much worse than two other recent articles. I'm wondering if Stoller has ever read anything other than a flattering, fluffy article about the netroots that he likes.

-- Bloggers on the right have been debating whether they should be doing more to be like bloggers on the left. Dean Barnett spurred the latest round of chatter with a Weekly Standard column about the "Lopsided Netroots." Bluey Blog, Right Wings News and techRepublican responded.

-- Blogads considers People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals one of its "smartest blog advertisers" -- and PETA's ongoing contest that invites bloggers and blog readers, "rather than traditional advertising 'dinosaurs,'" to create a blog ad is among the reasons. How's this for an incentive: "[B]ecause the ad is for PETA, entrants shouldn't hesitate to be racy, provocative, shocking, or controversial."

-- Republican Fred Thompson announced this week that he is running for president in 2008. Sounds like a good time to release a book about Thompson, and that's exactly what blogger Bill Hobbs has done. The title: "Who Is Fred Thompson? Tennessee Bloggers Debate The Candidate's Conservative Credentials." Keep in mind that Hobbs is now the GOP communications director in Tennessee, which Thompson once represented in the U.S. Senate.

-- The Society of Professional Journalists will be holding its national conference, and blogging will be among the topics of discussion. Robert Cox of the Media Bloggers Association, of which I'm a member, will lead an interactive discussion on "the challenges, threats and future opportunities for bloggers and journalists," according to SPJ. Get more details on the session here.

-- Jose Antonio Vargas, who writes about bloggers and more in his role as the Internet political reporter for The Washington Post, now has his own YouTube channel. "There's always been a wall between journalists and their readers," Vargas wrote in an e-mail announcing the channel. "In this new media landscape, that wall, we all know, must come down. And I think that's for the better."

-- Have to pay your own way through college? Try blogging your way through. You just might win a $10,000 blog scholarship. The submission deadline for this year's scholarship is Oct. 6, and the winner will be declared Oct. 28.

-- I'm looking for writers at AirCongress. Go here for the details and contact me if you're interested.

Posted by Danny | 08:30 AM

Comments

As a ninth-tier blogger, I resent the snark of "incoherence".

Osama Bin Bloggin'? I don't think he could handle it. Even in my most rum-soaked prattling I make more sense than he.

Joan of Argghh! | 09.09.07 02:32 PM

Other than ObL's newly dyed beard, there are some noticeable changes to the appearance of his face. These changes are symptomatic of trichinosis, a disease associated with the eating of tainted pork.

relentlessralph | 09.09.07 10:54 PM

It's not that 9th tier bloggers are necessarily bad writers. Often, it's simply that they write about something that is of so narrow interest few people are going to care. Let's hope the world reaches the point where Bin Ladin's rants are of less general interest than blogging about your needlepoint cat toys.

Suicide bombing blog? Wierd.

If we can't end terror completely, I'd settle for a world were we could fight the War on Terror as if it were a mental health issue.

celebrim | 09.10.07 10:02 AM

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