Friday, January 14, 2005

Kos on Kos

I don't see anyone linking to the source of the Blogging-for-Buck story about Daily Kos (I like to think of him as the leftist Tony Little). So here's his defense of himself, which is, I think, quite instructive. Try this quote:

So what's going on? Zephyr is obsessed with imposing journalistic standards on the blogosphere. We can debate the merits of this issue, and good points can be made on both sides (I think it's a dumb idea). But what Zephyr did, and which I find unconscionable, is that she took the Armstrong Williams issue, and made up shit about our involvement with the Dean campaign to score points.


I'm not sure how he gets to Armstrong Williams--Armstrong was getting funneled tax-payer money he never should have gotten in the first place and never disclosed anything; Kos was getting private money and he did make a fig-leaf disclosure (albeit only for one of his clients). But read Kos's post and see what sort of strokes he's working in.

(Bonus Kos note: In this post Kos writes, "it's not every day that I link to the so-called-liberal New Republic, but I like Ryan Lizza (he should write for TAP!)." I'm sure Lizza loves that endorsement.

6 comments:

Jason said...

What annoyed me most was Kos' June 9th, 2003 "full disclosure" was where he states: "Some of you may be upset, but there's nothing I can do about it. I have to make my living...". The old "I have to make a living" argument prized by drug dealers, women of the night, and petty thieves. It's also typical for that growing element on the Left, who increasingly lack principles, and then claim 'it's out of my control'.

Jason said...

What annoyed me most was Kos' June 9th, 2003 "full disclosure" where he states: "Some of you may be upset, but there's nothing I can do about it. I have to make my living...". The old "I have to make a living" argument prized by drug dealers, women of the night, and petty thieves. It's also typical for that growing element on the Left, who increasingly lack principles, and then claim 'it's out of my control'.

Bizarro Jack said...

Jason, that kind of generalization just makes you look like an idiot and widen the divide between right and left. I'm sure you can cite examples and some of them would be right but but the generalization is still wrong.

Jason said...

Thanks for the lesson Jack. I appreciate your efforts to teach. However, if I believe Kos lacks moral principles because he shamelessly takes money from political campaigns and excuses himself by stating he has to "make a living" AND this appears totally normal to him, AND his blog is one of the most widely read by persons on the Left (praised by Tereza Heinz no less), then yes I do think there is a "growing element" on the Left as I noted (notice the existential not universal quantifier to discourage overgeneralization) that lacks integrity.

Roger Snowden said...

I continue to be amazed at the efforts to define, and thereby contain blogdom. The idea of imposing journalistic-- or any-- standards on a phenomenon that is specifically about nothing, seems absurd.

If some blogger wants to pretend to legitimize himself by some act of "full disclosure", fine. And anyone who finds that blogger suddenly more credible is certainly entitled to hold such a belief. But they are fooling themselves. The blogosphere is exactly what you see today, nothing more, nothing less.

How would you make such standards uniform or universal? Issue a Blogging License?

Really now.

Jason said...

If political blogs have any utility then there is added value in identifying blogs that do not constitute bought opinions. This might be done through some type of 'accreditation', where a blogger pays a small fee to be listed as 'free of any conflict of interest'. The premium the blogger pays would be offset by increased readership. I personally don't want to spend my time reading commentary from people payed off of campaign money.