Time To Round Up The Bloggers Again

I got a bit of a laugh out of this Editor and Publisher story where Peter Osnos finds it so hard to understand how the news of former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s book about his shilling for Bushco could have created such a media frenzy.

Osnos describes in painstaking detail the decision making on the part of PublicAffairs (the book’s publisher) in choosing which excerpt to highlight to generate the maximum “buzz” for the book, and I would say that the excerpt chosen (in which McClellan admits that he now knows that the five highest-ranking individuals in Bushco were telling lies about Saddam Hussein’s WMD in Iraq) achieved the maximum impact in this regard (and for the moment, I'm giving McClellan the benefit of the doubt here which I'm sure he doesn't deserve).

And I would have given Osnos a pass also here except for this criticism...

Scott McClellan is writing a responsible book about his moment in history. Much of our popular media, including some leading brand names, apparently shoot first and ask later. The blogosphere and cable news operate in a universe of their own in which frenzy and vituperation are the major currency.

Oh, stop it already, will you, Osnos?

I will acknowledge that you’re a pro in the business of journalism, but I have to point something out, and this is as good of an excuse to do it as I’ll ever get.

I receive notice of articles published from the Center for American Progress every week, and Osnos is part of this organization. CAP does a lot of good and I give them credit, but more often than not, I find that their articles recycle information found online in lefty blogs that is at least a few days old already (yes, I know the group is basically a think tank, and yes, some of my content isn’t as fresh as it could be either, I’ll admit, including something I may get to later). Granted, they add a lot of depth and background, but it’s hard to do much with their articles except to add them as updates to prior posts (Eric Alterman is an exception from time to time, though, I should note).

CAP, however, does have something of a relationship with the high-profile lefty sites, and given that fact, it is ridiculous for Osnos to make that blanket generalization (to say nothing of the absurdity of linking bloggers with cable news organizations).

And on the subject of why “frenzy and vituperation are the major currency” for bloggers, I give you this from Atrios who perhaps knows the reason as no one else does, and I also give you this from Gene Lyons who understands what bloggers are all about better than Osnos ever will (registration required for the Arkansas Gazette to read Lyons, I should note).