Patrick Ruffini has a fascinating essay on Eric Alterman and media bias. Here’s the bit that will interest bloggers the most:
Blogging allows us to almost completely transcend the trite media bias debate by acting as a check on the excesses of Big Media. I once read that the average op-ed columnist in the Washington Post could expect to garner about 5,000 sets of eyeballs for a typical column (although I’d certainly entertain leaked newspaper traffic stats that prove me wrong). Almost that many people read me when I first waded into the thicket of this debate, not counting those who read the Fox News column. And I’m just, well, Patrick Ruffini. Blogs and right-wing fora aren’t making the news conservative, but they are taking some wind out of Howell’s sails, which is more than we could have possibly expected when we first undertook this endeavor. Does this mean that the news will always tilt left, despite our most valiant efforts? No. Rather, the exploding multiplicity of voices has made the “media” so delightfully complex as to defy ideological categorization.
Read it all. I hate to keep sending you to other people’s essays today, but after this last week, I’m a bit spent.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member