The Political Chase

Danny Glover comments on the rage over his NYT article

The esteemed Mr. Glover’s response to the outrage expressed over his jaundiced journalism.

A Follow-Up Piece On Paid Bloggers

After MSNBC republished my piece on paid campaign bloggers, an editior at The New York Times asked me to write a follow-up piece for an op-ed chart.

That article and accompanying chart were published this morning.

The names and numbers in the piece are the same as in my previous piece, but the Times asked me to highlight some of the praiseworthy posts that the bloggers wrote about their employers or their critical comments about opponents. Check it out.

UPDATE: Lots of bloggers are peeved about my Times article. I wanted to make sure their voices are heard here, too, so here are the links: Eschaton, MyDD and Pandagon.

Others don’t deserve to be heard because they don’t know how to debate an issue with civility and dignity. But for the sake of being complete, I’ll link to them as well: Roger Ailes, The News Blog and Whiskey Fire.

Ann Althouse had a different reaction: “Politicians: If you’re worried a blogger might undercut your campaign, know that about $2,000 a month will not only cut off the criticism; it will buy you a stream of free ads, written by a free ad writer. What a bargain!”

UPDATE II: Micah Sifry of Personal Democracy Forum has a thoughtful response to my piece, including my answers to his questions. Though I disagree with Sifry, I commend his entry as the best rebuttal to date I’ve seen to my Times piece.

For the record, and as I stated in a comment below, I also agree with this point by Instapundit Glenn Reynolds: “I think this is fine if there’s full disclosure, but you can form your own opinions.”

UPDATE III: I’ll link to more responses here as I find them. The latest is at Blue Jersey.

Others: Blog P.I., Digital Destiny, Done With Mirrors, Daniel W. Drezner, Marry In Massachusetts, Stubborn Facts, TalkLeft and Talking Points Memo.

UPDATE IV: This comment at TalkLeft is worth highlighting: “I think that this information is important. I want to know who is behind these new political powerbrokers. … Transparency as a political principle doesn’t stop at the gates of the blogosphere. Especially since established bloggers are now taking in and spending seven-figured sums of political money, meeting former presidents and being interviewed on CNN on Election Night. If I were a blogger, I wouldn’t attack the messenger here but rather ask some serious questions about credibility.”

In the same vein Jeff Jarvis said this at BuzzMachine: “We, of all people, must be very transparent about our roles and relationships, especially as we demand such transparency of media and politicians.

“It’s not just about appearances. It’s also about loyalties: Bloggers … are taking on roles of leadership, and those who choose to follow deserve to know whether the bloggers to whom they link are more loyal to a cause or to a candidate and whether their loyalty stems from payment. So the Times charting these paid relationships is doing to us as we would do unto others. Golden Rule, I’d say.”

Glover has received many comments on this post, most of which are not complimentary to Glover. Time permitting, I may post a few that are representative and/or duly notable.