September 26, 2004

With a Friend Like This…
The New York Times Trashes Lefty Bloggers


Hugh Hewitt is wrong. So is Charles Johnson. And Michele Catalano, Betsy Newmark, the Commissar, and Allah. All of them seemed to miss the point of the recent New York Time’s magazine article on lefty bloggers.

Oddly enough, the Daily Kos gets it right with the post title: “NY Times hatchet job against left-wing bloggers”

Many blogs (Wizbang, Powerline, Ace of Spades) are upset that the right side of the blogosphere is not represented in the lenthy profile. But considering that the article is a hit piece aimed at three prominent bloggers on the left – Markos Moulitsas, Wonkette, and Josh Micah Marshall – its odd that anyone on the right would be complaining that they weren't included in the line of fire.

The first clue that this wasn’t going to be journalistic piece on blogging comes from the Time’s choice of Matthew Klam to pen the profiles. While Klam has written non-fiction magazine articles before, he’s mostly known for his award-winning short stories. He won’t be forcing Tom Wolfe into an early retirement, but Klam does exhibits considerable skill in using his fiction writer’s eye for detail in producing spot-on character studies.

It is surprising that anyone could read the article and miss the snarky attitude toward its subjects. Klam isn’t exactly being subtle in exposing the common thread that combines these diverse lefty bloggers together: low self-esteem and a desperate need to be noticed. Greg Piper provides a fairly accurate summary of the key points by noting how Klam portrays:

Moulitsas bobbing between his rabid partisanship and hatred of the party structure; Marshall increasingly dissatisfied with his blogging accomplishments yet clueless on how to find another job as relaxed and fluid as blogging; and Cox on her aspirations to make the leap to TV punditry after a decade of failed mainstream journalism gigs, now worsened by her less-than-stellar debut as MTV's convention correspondent.

Here are a few examples of how Klam highlights the worst features of these blogging narcissists:

  • Markos Moulitsas (Daily Kos) “could pass for 15.” (pg. 1)

  • On how Moulitsas writes a post: Pulls a story off nytimes.com that makes Robert Novak look bad. Types the header, “Novak blows another one”. Clicks “submit.” (pg. 1)

  • “Moulitsas read some e-mail messages and surfed around, trying to think of the next rotten thing to say about the right.”(pg. 1)

  • Ana Marie Cox (Wonkette) was once a “serious-minded editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education” until she reinvented herself into, “Wonkete, foulmouthed, hard-drinking, sex-obsessed politics junkie.” (pg. 2)

  • When he isn’t writing magazine articles, Joshua Micah Marshall “writes like every other overeducated journalist.” On his blog, though, “he has become an irate spitter of well-crafted vitriol aimed at the president…”

  • When Marshall is in a “bad mood” he lashes out at mainstream journalists. (pg. 2)

  • Moulitsas is “cruel and superior, and he knows his side is going to win.” (pg. 2)

  • Klam contrasts the new breed, ushered in by Joe Trippi and the Deniacs, with a blog culture that was “dominated by credentialed gentlemen like Kaus, Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds” (pg. 3)

  • Notes that liberals don't really want to know both sides of an issue. (pg. 3)

  • Daily Kos and Josh Marshall’s sites are part of the fast growing “angrier, nastier partisan blogs”. (pg. 3)

  • Moulitsas posts such thought-provoking pieces as a “doctored photo of Senator Zell Miller with fangs and bloody eyes and the comment, ‘'Try not to puke'” (pg. 4)

  • ”The Wonkette is more fun to read than Daily Kos. She's also more fun to hang out with.” [Klam doesn’t seem to care for Moulitsas.](pg. 4)

  • ''Other bloggers don't consider me a real blogger,'' says Ana Marie Cox. (pg. 4)

  • Cox on interacting with her readers: “I hate all that.” (pg. 4)

  • Cox is pretty and has a “filthy mind.” (pg. 4)

  • How Cox describes the “story of her life”: the smart girl getting booted out of a place where she belonged. (pg. 4)

  • Describes how Cox can’t keep a job. (pg. 4)

  • Explains that Cox works for pornographer Nick Denton. (pg. 4)

  • Points out that for a skin merchant, Denton is quite the skin-flint. Wonkette only gets paid $18,000 a year. (pg. 4)

  • Wonkette slams Marshall: ''The only thing [Denton] said was that he wanted [Wonkette] to be funnier than Josh Marshall,'' says Cox. ''The bar isn't raised too high.'' (pg. 5)

  • How Klam describes Wonkette: “Imagine a fairly drunk housewife stuck in front of CNN, growing hornier as the day wears on. The Wonkette reads like a diary of that day.” (pg. 5)

  • Hints that Wonkette’s most significant contribution was ''The Sloganator'' meme. (pg. 5)

  • Claims that Cox treats Wonkette more seriously than it warrants.“She spent about a month out of her mind with excitement on one totally pointless story…”(pg. 5)

  • Notes with disdain how MTV asked Cox to report from the Democratic National Convention and how excited she was thinking it might turn into a real job at the network. (pg. 5)

  • ”Whatever it is that makes a person want to be famous, need to be famous -- and not everything about a ravenous hunger for fame is bad -- Cox has that.” (pg. 5)

  • Notes how Wonkette “hardly blogged” at the convention and that MTV had scheduled only a single short piece for her to do from the convention floor. ''I'm not really doing anything for MTV,'' she said at the start of the convention. ''I'm doing interviews about being hired by MTV.'' (pg. 5)

  • Klam throws a sucker punch at Cox with: "I couldn't figure it out. Why was she so excited about working for MTV? MTV is for 9-year-olds. It's so 1992. It was as if her sense of what was cool and what was stupid, so unerring on her blog, had abandoned her.” (pg. 5) [So true. It’s like a drummer for The Sex Pistols wanting to jam with the Lawrence Welk Orchestra.]

  • ”But then she wasn't asked to cover the Republican convention for MTV. It would be fair to say that this upset her. Wonkette had seemed like the perfect stepping stone to something big. Now she had to consider, What if Wonkette was as good as it gets?” (pg. 5)

  • Notes that Josh Marshall often edits while he’s falling asleep. (pg. 5)

  • Explains how Marshall had to make a fake press ID for the DNC convention. (pg. 5)

  • Implies that Marshall has self-esteem issues: “Even before he had finished his Ph.D. in American history at Brown, he was thinking about the impending problem of how to look legit, where to fit in.” (pg. 5)

  • Says that Marshall’s blog works by “oversimplifying weighty issues”. (pg. 6)

  • Hints that Marshall has hygiene issues: “The next morning, he got back into his clothes from the night before. He looked like a wrinkle bomb had hit him.” This is one of three times when Klam will point out that Marshall wears wrinkled clothes.

  • Nails JMM with a point that will be familiar to anyone who has read Talking Points Memo: “Marshall was fiddling with his computer and finishing a cellphone call about what he called ''the biggest story of my life,'' one that would quell any fears about his legitimacy as a real journalist, at least for a while.” (pg. 6)

  • Points out that Marshall is completely uninterested in any blogger that isn’t Josh Micah Marshall. (pg. 6)

  • Marshall is not a “major player” in the MSM and while he has written magazine article, they are “nothing earth-shattering.” (pg. 6)

  • ”[Marshall] can't decide between loving the big media, linking to it, hoping they'll pick up on stories, and hating it, despising it, insulting it, trying to convince you, or himself, that it's the worst thing in the world and that it's ruining American democracy.” (pg. 6)

  • Makes a fool of Moulitsas by pointing out his most embarrassing blunder: ”On April Fools' Day, Moulitsas really blew it. In a swaggering reaction to a Daily Kos reader who wondered in the comment section whether the four American civilian contractors strung up in Falluja deserved the same respect as American soldiers, he wrote, ''I feel nothing over the death of mercenaries,'' and then added, ''Screw them.'' Within hours, he became the focus of an international letter-writing campaign to drive away all of his advertisers. It worked, too. House candidates, Senate candidates, they all pulled their ads. But in a matter of weeks brand-new ads came in to fill the void. ''It was a blip!'' Moulitsas told me later, a little triumphantly. He had nearly destroyed himself, but not quite.” (pg. 6) [Klam’s disgust of Molitsas is becoming apparant.]

  • Includes the fact that in high school, Moulitsas didn’t have any friends. (pg. 6)

  • Relates a story about how Moulitsas got into a screaming match with Jim Bonham, the director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: ''You should've heard him yelling: 'So you can raise $20,000, but I can raise $2 million! You have to understand your role in this!''' (pg. 8)

  • Klam spends half a page highlighting how Moulitsas is a jerk who thinks, contrary to reality, that he is an important force in the Democratic Party. (pg. 8)

  • Highlights how Moulitsas, like Cox and Marshall, has self-esteem issues: ''I'm really self-conscious of how the blogger community perceives me,'' he said. ''I feel guilty that I don't link to more bloggers, I feel guilty that I'm more successful than other bloggers. I feel guilty that I make as much money as I do now, that I get more traffic. Rather than enjoy it, sometimes I feel really guilty about it. It's silly.'' (pg. 9)

  • Notes that the lefty bloggers didn’t write anything important at the DNC convention: “The only thing the bloggers really had the inside scoop on were the balloons hanging a few feet away from them in the rafters, in huge sacks of netting.”

    • After reading the article in its entirety I couldn’t understand how anyone could think this was a favorable profile. Even the usually astute Hugh Hewitt draws the peculiar conclusion that:

    The expression of bias is the incredible series of whopping omissions in the coverage. This is MSM's attempt --and there will be many more-- to "credential" some of their favorites in the blogosphere, thus elevating them and hopefully their readership.

    Maybe Hugh’s right. But if this is the way the mainstream media treats its friends then I think those of us on the right should relish our position as the “enemy.”

    Update: N.Z. Bear gets it:

    I tend to agree with [Daily Kos], for the most part, although I'd suggest that the slant of the story was more due to a bad writer looking for a simple storyline ("rise of the angry unkempt lefty bloggers") than due to actual political prejudice.

    Update 2: David Frum agrees with me:

    Matthew Klam’s piece pays little attention to the political consequences of left-wing blogging. He amuses himself instead with a brutal evisceration of the ambitions and delusions of three of the best-known left-wing bloggers in his gunsights: the above-mentioned Marshall, Ann Marie Cox of Wonkette.com, and Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos.com. Klam deftly portrays Marshall’s obsessive hunting of Great White Whale conspiracies, the grungy ideological fanaticism of the Daily Kos, and the desperately flailing attention-seeking of Wonkette. Klam's piece cannot make for pleasant reading for any of his subjects. And I suspect that the unpleasantness must have come as quite a shock.

    (Hat tip: Entre Nous)

    Update 3: Jim Treacher has some advice for everyone who has an opinion about this story:

    Please shut up for a minute and actually read it, like I just forced myself to. Don't just skim it for your own name, or for how many more "lefties" are named than "righties." Read it.

    You dodged a bullet.

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    comments
    Greg writes:

    1

    I didn't think it was so much a biased presentation of the lefty bloggers as an attempt to show them in all their glory and despair. Blogging thus far has been basically lauded for its potential to overturn the authority of the mainstream media, and alternately denounced (often by mainstream journalists) for spreading rumors and giving guys in their pajamas the idea that they are practicing real journalism. But as this entertaining feature shows, blogging has its warts, its anxieties, its backstories. They had been largely missing from the new crop of fawning (or anthropologically-written) articles about bloggers since the convention. Still would have been nice to hear a bit more about the right side of blogging, which in public consciousness probably doesn't register as high as the liberal side just because of asymmetric media coverage.

    posted on 09.26.2004 11:44 PM
    David Marcoe writes:

    2

    I think it might be a matter of politics...

    You might remember the early media coverage about Demo. candidates collecting large sums of money through their websites and the story of how Kerry hired the head of Moveon.org to be an advisor. Basically, the Leftist media groomed lefty bloggers and partisan sites as political shock troops, seeing them as a potential edge over the RNC, which was percieved as behind the times.

    It was effectively a bargin between blog and Big Media: "Deliver us results and we'll give you some time in the spotlight." As part of that deal, Big Media held its tongue and limited it comments, allowing lefty bloggers and partisans to have some time in the sandbox, so to speak.

    Exactly opposite of their hopes, it delivered everything between zero results and a significant hit to credibility; a car spinning its wheels in a mud filled hole and getting itself even more stuck. Since the bloggers and web pundits didn't deliver on their end of the bargin, they are being shot like a beast of burden that is no longer useful. This NY piece may just be the first salvo.

    posted on 09.27.2004 12:12 AM
    LB writes:

    3

    Hugh Hewitt is wrong.

    Ohhhhhhh....

    posted on 09.27.2004 7:48 AM
    Joe Carter writes:

    4

    LB,

    It doesn't happen often so I hope he'll forgive me for pointing it out this one time. ; )

    posted on 09.27.2004 8:17 AM
    Dave S. writes:

    5

    James Lileks has a hilarious piece on a stereotypical reader of the NYT magazine.

    http://www.lileks.com/bleats/index.html

    It's about half way down the page.

    posted on 09.27.2004 10:26 AM
    Kevin T. Keith writes:

    6

    I think you're right. The article is a good example of writing by someone who is clearly contemptuous of the subject, and of why you shouldn't hire writers like that (unless that's what you're looking for, I guess). What a weird, vaguely distasteful piece. It might have been interesting to have seen it done by somebody who was willing to take the subject seriously. This was just a trivializing waste.

    How is Wonkette a "lefty blogger", though? Other than being unfazed by sex, I don't see her as particularly left-wing, or as having any coherent political perspective, for that matter. I will say, though, that the staged photo of Johnny Apple and Jack Germond looking over Wonkette's shoulders as she blogs on her laptop is priceless.

    posted on 09.27.2004 12:13 PM
    Larry Lord writes:

    7

    KTK

    I totally agree. Wonkette's blog is about Ana Marie Cox and little else. Ms.Cox is a certified "fame whore", does not disguise it, and has been that way since we first crossed paths, over a decade ago, on an indie-rock usenet mailing list. Ms. Cox has less to do with "leftist" politics than the hair stylist who trims Alex Baldwin's pubes.

    posted on 09.27.2004 1:10 PM
    Joe Carter writes:

    8

    Kevin,

    How is Wonkette a "lefty blogger", though?

    I was using "lefty" in its most common definition used by conservatives -- "a person whose politics I disagree with." ; )

    posted on 09.27.2004 1:34 PM
    Josh Narins writes:

    9

    Thanks for helping me avoid wasting my time with the article.

    What a smear-job.

    Of course, the NY Times is often the target of lefty-blogs, since they unabashedly run Judith Miller, Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, every scandal story on Clinton, every smear job on Dean and now they are doing a fine job repeating the lies about Kerry.

    the NY Times is just another State propaganda machine, it seems.

    posted on 09.27.2004 2:47 PM
    the elder writes:

    10

    I gotta agree with KTK and LL here (the Apocalypse may very well be at hand). I never have thought of Wonkette as a lefty blogger along the lines of JMM or Kos. She's a self-absorbed, gossipy party girl. If she wasn't an attractive woman who likes to talk dirty, no one would pay her the least bit of attention.

    posted on 09.27.2004 4:50 PM
    Kent writes:

    11

    Yes, right-leaning bloggers can be grateful that Klam's poison pen wasn't aimed in their direction, and those who were profiled should not be flattered by the attention.

    But, if all you know of blogs is what you read in the article, the mainstream media's complaints about the "pajama brigade" seem much more believable. It seems like an effort to smear the whole medium in general. Second, when the NY Times Magazine says something like "Left-wing politics are thriving on blogs the way Rush Limbaugh has dominated talk radio," then profiles only two left-wing bloggers and one dirty-talking party girl ... Hugh's right. It's an obvious attempt to marginalize the right side of the blogosphere in particular.

    posted on 09.27.2004 6:14 PM
    Jim Treacher writes:

    12

    I got it right! It happens so seldom, I feel the need to tell people.

    More evidence that this wasn't the lefty love-fest some of these guys are saying: At the time I'm typing this, I'm pretty sure none of those three have even commented on it, let alone bragged about it.

    posted on 09.27.2004 11:26 PM
    ed writes:

    13

    Wonkette sure pointed out last week. anyway, people raead her because she's funny. Something the majority of blogs sure aren't.

    posted on 09.28.2004 1:17 PM
    Sissy Willis writes:

    14

    'Couldn't agree with you more. 'Had a similar take. It turns out the article isn't about blogging at all but writer Matthew Klam himself -- a lefty gossip columnist who fancies himself a "journalist" -- starstruck at having managed to tag along with the blogosphere's golden girl -- "Ana Marie Cox has peachy cream skin and eyes of a very bright blue, strawberry blond hair and a filthy mind; she likes to analyze our nation's leaders in their most private, ah, parts" -- to the most glamorous parties surrounding the political conventions this summer: Let them eat raw carrots and radishes

    posted on 09.28.2004 1:37 PM
    BigFire writes:

    15

    Well, Charles Johnson (of Little Green Footballs) only lost 45 minutes of his life to the interviewer. Apparently he's too well adjusted for Klam to knock about.

    posted on 09.28.2004 1:59 PM
    Jim Treacher writes:

    16

    "Wonkette sure pointed [it] out last week."

    Right. Before it came out. Nothing since.

    posted on 09.28.2004 2:22 PM
    craig henry writes:

    17

    Cox worked at The American Prospect and Mother Jones before ending up at Wonkette. So that puts her pretty firmly on the lefty side of the spectrum.

    posted on 09.28.2004 2:30 PM
    Dead Parrot writes:

    18

    The article was obviously written as a put-down of the media nouveau-riche. The Times likes them in many ways since all three are leftists, but it has no respect for them because they have no real content and are, in truth, rather brainless. Marshall and Moulitsas are nothing more than Kool-Aid drinking hacks. Cox is simply a low-rent whore. All of them probably have had about 13 original thoughts in between them.

    So-called Wonkette is most definitely a lefty. If you read her site enough, you'll be able to discern that she attempts to make fun of Republicans about twice as much as Democrats. She's even admitted to it.

    Also, I don't understand the fascination with her. I guess it's just another one of those "OMG! Chick w/puter!" geek moments. I've seen her in person a few times and she ain't nothing.

    posted on 09.28.2004 3:37 PM
    Michael B writes:

    19

    "David Frum agrees with me." Joe Carter

    You seem to relegate the Klam piece to merely a hit piece, Frum expresses a more positive enthusiasm for the Klam piece: "The piece is riveting: vivid, remorseless, and deadly. Klam has that magic interviewer's gift for inducing his intended victims to place their lives in his hands."

    Hewitt's and others' observations are confusing, but no more confusing than indicating, without qualification, that "Frum agrees with me." Klam's is in fact something of a hit piece, but one based on some fairly accurate reporting and portrayals even if they are also leavened with opinion. Your bulleted points help to throw that opinion into sharper relief than when read within the context of the piece as a whole, yet in the end they still need to be read in context in order to be understood as a whole.

    I agree very much with Frum's portrayal but am more confused than enlightened by your post. Klam's piece is opinion based journalism, a form of journalism in our contemporary social/political sphere that is in contrast with, exactly, what other prominent form of journalism in this sphere?

    posted on 09.28.2004 4:04 PM
    holdfast writes:

    20

    One of the posters above had a good point - the profle of the unkempt, dirty duo of Marshall and Kos, and the brain-in-her-crotch Skankette, certainly bolsters the CBS-approved image of bloggers as weirodos with computers but no worthwhile thoughts to contribute - hell, these guys don't even change for bed, let alone own pajamas. Furthermore, since all good NYT readers know that lefties are smarter than righties, it must therefore follow that all those right-wing bloggers they hear about (but would never be so gauche as to actually read) are even dumber than the leftie variety profiled, and that must be pretty dumb indeed. Profiling blogs like Beldar, Powerline, CQ, LGF, Instapundit or Iraqnow (highly recommended) would force Klam to talk to intelligent, hygenic and sucessfull professionals who blog as a sideline. That's certainly not the script that he was writing to.

    Conclusion? The three bloggers profiled are dirty and of rather mediocre intelligence. And the NYT only really convinces those that have already consumed the Kool Aid - so no real-world impact at all.

    I did love the pic of the two ODBs looking down Cox's top.

    posted on 09.28.2004 5:45 PM
    Van der Leun writes:

    21

    Well,that about says it all.

    posted on 10.06.2004 4:02 AM