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Posted on 01.08.09 by K. Daniel Glover @ 10:14 pm
Personal Democracy Forum has released its list of top political blogs for 2009, and one conclusion is clear: The free-wheeling, independent blogosphere of yore is no more. The first thing I noticed on the list is how many of the top political blogs are the work of old media empires. The fourth, fifth and sixth slots are owned by CNN (1980, old in the cable news world), The Atlantic (1857) and The New York Times (1851). The Atlantic also owns another blog that ranks No. 22, and the blogger ranked 29th was at The Atlantic until several months ago. Other old media brands are among the top 50 blogs, too. They include The Wall Street Journal (No. 12), ABC News (18), Time (23 and 47), CQ Politics (34), and Mother Jones (39). Politico (14) and Salon (21), mainstream publications that are relative newcomers to the political journalism world, also made the list. And two niche blogs with big media parents, Treehugger (owned by Discovery) and Threat Level (Wired), rank seventh and eighth. National Review, the granddaddy of conservative political publications (founded in 1955), has a group blog in the No. 15 spot, and Reason, the mainstay of libertarian journalism (1968), ranks 30th. That’s 17 blogs in the top 50, or 34 percent, with ties to established media brands. Some of those empires have old media influences built into them. TPM was founded by liberal journalist Josh Marshall. Conservative journalist Michelle Malkin is the force behind her own blog and Hot Air. Huffington Post political editor Thomas Edsall was a political reporter at The Washington Post for more than 20 years, and other top editors at HuffPo with big media backgrounds include Katharine Zaleski (CNN) and Willow Bay (NBC). RedState, furthermore, is owned by Eagle Publishing, which produces the conservative newspaper Human Events. Politically oriented nonprofits also are among the political blogging elite. The Center for American Progress comes in at No. 9, and the Media Research Center rounds out the top 20. Add ‘em together and 27 of the top 50 blogs, including 22 out of the top 25, are run by big media, owned by people with ties to it, or they are the foundation of the new big media. The only newcomer on the list, at No. 10, is FiveThirtyEight, a blog geared toward polling junkies. Now let’s flashback to January 2005 and see PDF’s top 25 blogs: Instapundit, Daily Kos, Andrew Sullivan, Eschaton, Doc Searls, Little Green Footballs, Scripting News, Wonkette, This Modern World, The Volokh Conspiracy, Lileks, Powerline, Corante, Kuro5hin, BuzzMachine, Media Matters for America, Baghdad Burning, The Truth Laid Bear, Vodkapundit, Informed Comment, Joi Ito’s Web, Michelle Malkin, IndyMedia, Crooked Timber, Scrappleface. TPM, RedState and The Corner were listed as afterthoughts four years ago, in the category “other influential sites.” Some of the top blogs back then are still in today’s top 50 but not in the top 25. Most of them aren’t on the list at all. They have been bested by the big boys, and the odds of any new political blogger being able to break into the top ranks on his or her own these days aren’t good. As of 2009, it’s official: The political blogosphere is now part of the mainstream media it so despised and vice versa. Everything new media is old again. (FULL DISCLOSURE: During my career, I have worked for three of the organizations mentioned in this blog post — Atlantic Media, Congressional Quarterly and the Media Research Center.) Filed under: Blogging and Business and Media and News & Politics Comments:
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[...] post from Danny Glover on blogs and media. His intro: Personal Democracy Forum has released its list of top political blogs for 2009, and [...]
Pingback by The Big Media Blogosphere - Redhot - RedState — January 8, 2009 @ 10:44 pm
Danny, you seem to be in the thick of the journalism business. From your perspective, do you see strong slants by news organizations in support or against different political philosophies? Bernard Goldberg seemed to through a rock in the hornets nest a while back with his book about CBS. Do you see it thorughout the industry as slanting one way or the other or are there enough outlets now that it’s “balanced”? Just wanting an insider’s opinion….if you can share it without getting in hot water yourself, though the Danny Glover I remember from school days would grin at stiring the pot. :D
Comment by Tom Shepherd — January 9, 2009 @ 12:57 pm
I could dedicate an entire book to answering that question myself, Tom. :))) The short answer is yes, I see philosophical slants by news organizations all the time.
The slant is usually subtle — the stories journalists choose to report and the ones they choose to ignore, the loaded adjectives they use in their writing, the leading headlines they write, the way information is organized in a story, etc. I stumbled upon an excellent dissertation years ago that demonstrated such biases by analyzing coverage of gun rights vs. gun control in major publications and wrote an essay on that study.
My conclusion back then: “Media bias is both real and subtle, and it often goes undetected by both readers and those of us who engage in it. So let this be a warning to the masses. You should be as skeptical, if not cynical, of us journalists as we are of you when you accuse us, rightly or wrongly, of taking sides.”
My perspective changed drastically this year, both because I had a job at the Media Research Center where I was more exposed to the bias that exists (have you ever noticed that Democrats are rarely identified in news reports about their scandals but Republicans always are, and high in the story) and because I saw so many of my journalistic colleagues worshiping at the altar of Barack Obama. One former colleague went to work for his campaign — not long after conducting a friendly interview with him.
If you’re an Obama fan, I don’t say that to offend. He’s my president now, too, and I hope he succeeds. I offer that not so much as a political statement but as an analysis of the current pitiful state of my profession. Voters saw the same bias I did, according to polls; they just didn’t care about it because they liked Obama.
What I wish people would realize is that they like Obama in part because of the largely positive coverage he received compared with his rivals in both the Democratic primary and the general election. Media coverage shapes the way people think, whether they realize it or not.
There are more outlets now and that certainly brings some balance to the situation. The Internet has helped tremendously, too, because anyone can be a reporter if he/she wants to be. But the problem is that most people still tend to get their news from the major outlets, where bias can be a serious problem. Or they only watch one channel or read one paper, so they aren’t getting the balanced news diet they need.
Comment by Danny Glover — January 9, 2009 @ 2:28 pm
[...] hate even more seeing new media innovators like PJTV follow their lousy lead. As I said yesterday, everything new media is old again. addthis_url = [...]
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