(Anyone Surprised?)
An unfortunate object lesson in Reverse 'Liberal' Bias at the nation's 'Paper of Record'.
By Brad Friedman on 3/14/2005, 7:36am PT  

We're delighted that The New York Times has today decided to take notice of Blogcall.org, an organization created by Progressive Bloggers as a way to help see their real stories and real exposés find their way into a corporate media which now consistently slants to the Right.

It is, however, more than a bit disappointing to see that their article on same ends up --- but, of course --- slanting so much to the Right!

We should point out that we are mentioned in the piece by The Times' Jonathan D. Glater, that we were somewhat instrumental in the organization of Blogcall.org and that we were, in fact, the featured guest blogger on last week's call. (We discussed our three-and-a-half month Tom Feeney/Clint Curtis Vote-Rigging investigation and broke the news during the call of the Valdosta, GA police re-opening the related case of the mysterious suicide of Raymond Lemme. That conference call is archived here if you'd like to listen.)

While their online version of the article links to us, it also fails to link to Blogcall.org or even mention it by name.

But far more troubling, however, is that Glater spends well over half his ink discussing and quoting from Rightwing blogs and bloggers in his story!

Undiscussed in the article, the underlying point of Blogcall.org is to bring together the detailed investigative reporting of blogs such as this one with those in the MSM by demonstrating our willingness to take the tough unscreened questions about our work.

Unlike those on the Right, we are more than willing to face those tough questions from all sides concerning the reports which we offer. We don't find it necessary to stack the deck in such a way as to allow only "friendly" questions into the mix as the Right so often does. (Just ask those Americans who aren't allowed into townhall meeting with George W. Bush anymore or those reporters to whom Jeff Gannon/James Guckert simply won't reply or the thousands of Americans who have been permanently banned from posting at repugnant wingnut sites like FreeRepublic.com after simply daring to post a single comment there which doesn't dance in lockstep with "the party line".)

While we admit to having a personal fondness for Glater, having gotten to know him a bit over the last couple of weeks via phone and email interviews, we can't help but point to his article today as an ironic object lesson in how the MSM is simply stacked hard against the Left.

We can do little more than chalk it up to the pervasive reverse "Liberal" bias in the corporate media about which we chatted with Glater on the phone prior to publication of the article. It is clear that the wingnuts have these guys so terrified by their manipulative, cynical (and inaccurate) charges of "Liberal" bias that they are now simply willing to turn back-flips in order to make sure the Right is over-represented in any article that even touches on issues political.

Read the piece for yourself, and let us know what you think. And we more than welcome Mr. Glater's responses as well. Unlike one of the rightwing blogs noted in his article, we actually allow reader comments here. And unlike another rightwing site in the article (FreeRepublic) nobodies comments here are banned or deleted simply because we may not agree with them.

UPDATE: The re-printed, re-edited version of Glater's story over at the International Herald Tribune offers a far more appropriate, far less slanted take on the issue. Had the original Times piece been edited in that way, we likely would have had no problem with it.

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