Media technology

Whether you've followed the right-wing hits on the John Edwards bloggers or not, this is a must-read. (And well worth the brief on-screen ad required for Salon non-subscribers.)

That Donohue easily succeeded where a hundred right-wing bloggers failed is also unsurprising. Donohue has a long, dirty, but bizarrely successful career of conservative hit jobs. As Frances Kissling has noted, Donohue seems to take particular pleasure in silencing women.

In venues ranging from the New York Times to the major cable news networks, Donohue demanded that the Edwards campaign fire McEwan and me. The left blogosphere, furious that a smear artist might try to snap his fingers and bully a Democratic campaign into firing a staffer, pushed back hard. Liza at Culture Kitchen collected just a sampling of the hundreds of blog posts and letters that were protesting the very idea that such a manufactured controversy should have any impact on the staffing of presidential campaigns.

To me, it's rather shocking how such radical hate-filled bigots have gained currency in the mainstream media claiming that they are being oppressed by criticism of their bigotry.

Then again, maybe it's just a natural result. Most mainstream news outlets and reporters seem to work just hard enough to get a headline and a lead paragraph, and to hell with the details. The well-financed right-wing noise machine makes for convenient news. Even the respected NewsHour routinely hosts dogmatists from the well-funded Republican shill foundations to "analyze" the news.

If you build it, they will come. If you shout it loud enough, they will report it. QED.

Still, it is disturbing how these wingnut operatives -- whether freelance or funded -- wage political terrorism in American media. Amanda's Salon article offers some startling and offensive details:

I found this in the in-box this morning.

Time for Blogads' annual blog reader survey. Yes, the third annual! Now open for business. (I apologize if you've gotten several of these -- some people say they haven't gotten prior versions.)

Right now we'll survey JUST readers of politically influential blogs... your readers. I'm sending this survey link out to 200 political blogad sellers, plus a few friends. (We'll survey other blogad niches in coming weeks.)

As in past years, Blogads will pay for the survey. Even though the results will be severely unscientific, the project helps us all better understand blogs and where we all fit in the infosphere. Stuff like this also helps with evangelism -- headlines notwithstanding, too many pundits, advertisers and journalists are still blind to the political bloggers' radical force.

If you want your readers to be represented, please point them to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=84511800967....

So we can break out your blog's data later, please ask your readers to list it as the referring blog for question #23.

For that last part, please, if you would, put media girl (2 words, lowercase).

That's it, that's all. We now return you to the regularly scheduled blogging.

Because of commitments I have to develop some other websites, I probably will not be blogging much over the coming week or so (though at times I may not be able to help myself).

Perhaps some of the other women here will take the opportunity to fill in with some lively discussion. (Consider that an invitation, girls!)

Meanwhile I'll be peeking in now and then.

Today I found out that medigirl.org content is now being aggregated at feminist blogs! This is very exciting to be put in such illustrious company. Be sure to click on over and read some really great writers and thinkers there (including some you'll find right here in the "elsewheres" blogroll on this page).