It might not be as sexy as an item about an MSM anchor exposing his liberal bias. But if there's one thing I'd encourage conservatives to read, consider and act on in the blogosphere today, it is the Patrick Ruffni column "Information Gaps on the Right" at Hugh Hewitt's blog.
Ruffini's fundamental point is the need for professionalized, conservative "feeder blogs," sites that "tee up" information for other blogs. Ruffini points to Think Progress as a model from the left of what this should be:
ThinkProgress provides a valuable service to the left by leveraging a full-time research staff to be the first to report and frame up news stories. Their content is rarely witty and original and isn’t meant to be. It’s just meant to provide context and a prod for others to cover these stories. The research backing also means they do the legwork to connect the dots in ways that bloggers rarely do. If John McCain says something today, they’re all about telling you what he said about the same thing in March, what he said in 2003, what he said in 1999, and so on.
Ruffini concludes by observing that if there was money out there to contribute $2+ million for the Rush-Reid letter:
[T]hen someone has a few million to spend on blogger-journalists to investigate Democratic corruption or on a sustained project to get out different storylines about Iraq or to set up an open-source research operation to more closely bracket the coverage. And it doesn’t have to be done through any existing institution, with all its offline encumbrances. The Politico, already at #4 on Memeorandum, shows the power of doing it as a startup.
Note that NewsBusters itself fulfills that feeder function in the area of liberal media bias. And speaking of Memeorandum, NB currently ranks #35 there, just behind the Times of London, and ahead of Time, Newsweek and, ahem, Daily Kos.
There's much more of importance that Ruffini has to say. I don't do this often, but I would urge NewsBusters readers to have a look, and get involved in this project. Bravo to Patrick Ruffini for having put it on the table in such compelling fashion.
Update 15:14 | Matthew Sheffield. Ruffini's point here is very well-taken and one I've been trying to get a lot of conservative groups to realize: the right is so far behind when it comes to original reporting and research online. Unfortunately, it's been a tough job trying to convince people of the great need we have on the right for focused, targeted blogs.
—Mark Finkelstein is a NewsBusters contributing editor and host of Right Angle. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net.
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I would love to be able to
October 24, 2007 - 13:26 ET by futbolisgreat1I would love to be able to contribute or even start a website that counters Thinkprogress.org. the problem is that I don't have the money and it just seems that Conservatives are unwilling to do the legwork like Liberals do.
Furthermore, I would say that we shouldn't emulate Thinkprogress.org, since 9 times out of 10 they are dishonest and make connections where there is no connections.
Thinkprogress.org also doesn't report on what hurts Democrats. I read Thinkprogress.org on a daily basis, for months they were all about reporting the number of Iraqi deaths, American deaths in Iraq and how much violence was increasing. Now that violence is down, American deaths are down, Iraqi deaths are down, they do not report this.
Also, I would have to disagree that they do not opine on what they report, if you look at it today, they have a story about O'Reilly saying that the author of Harry Potter is a "provocatour". The writer that put up the piece attacks O'Reilly as having na shady past and always attacking homosexuals.
Regardless, I don't want to emulate Thinkprogress.org since they speak half-truths and a lot of lies. We must do better than them!
If someone has an idea on how to start this and how to get research people and people to write to do something similar like Thinkprogress.org does, I am all for it.
Slightly off topic......
October 24, 2007 - 13:48 ET by Prester John........but Drudge has a news flash re: The New Republic stories written by the soldier in Baghdad.
BOTTOM LINE: Drudge has documents from both the author and the Army that shows the stories were a fraud.
http://www.drudgerep...
Thanks to all the bloggers that took TNR to task!!
Involved how, Mark?
October 24, 2007 - 16:06 ET by RJGood article, but I'm not clear on what you mean by getting involved, unless you mean those with their own blogs. Like Ruffini said, "Every movement or media phenomenon starts with amateurs improvising. But at some point it has to be professionalized if it’s going to be sustained and grow."
That's the next step for the "Pajamahadeen", right?
Which reminds me of Charles Johnson's effort, The Pajamas Media. How is that going, and wouldn't organizations like that be the best way to set up a feeder program?
I know what I am about to
October 24, 2007 - 18:23 ET by alamojbI know what I am about to say does not fully address this, but I think there are some current special interest conservative groups that are underutilized. For instance, I have seen in one of the gun magazines, right now I do not remember which one, where they print articles about someone using a gun in self defense. In reality, these stories rarely make it past the local news media, if at all. So many people have never heard of someone using a gun in self defense. Another one is some of the organizations that are operating to oppose the shenangins of the ACLU. The pro-lifers groups also have some originall stuff that is ignored by the media. Some of the anti-illegal immigration groups have videos on the web that show speeches by the illegal aliens supporters and Mexican Separatist types that every American ought to see- videos that would entirely change the debate for those sitting on the fence. Another area is in the coverage of creeping sharia law in Europe-there is a fair amount of stuff that should serve as a warning that all Americans need to see- but again, it is mainly on certain sites on the web. We need a central cleering house for these stories as an alternative to the AP and feed them to local news stations and newspapers. Many of these stations run "national stories". Some of the local media is friendlier to conservatives than the national media- depending on where you live.
I was starting to collect quite a long list of "Favorites" on the internet, till the other day I got such a bad computer virus/ worm that I had to reformat the hard drive and I lost a lot of the stuff I was begginning to compile. But it can be rebuilt.
Sorry to here about your
October 24, 2007 - 21:31 ET by rimskySorry to here about your computer crash.. hope you can recover. Meanwhile, can you provide the links that you mention here? Like the guns used in self defense, and the ACLU watchdog site? Thanks. Oh, BTW, you might want to consider getting a MacBook.
rimsky,Looks like Mikeb
October 25, 2007 - 22:51 ET by alamojbrimsky,
Looks like Mikeb answered the gun thing. That was one I had only seen in a hard copy magazine and never had a link to.
The Anti-ACLU: Check out these two sites: http://www.stoptheaclu.com/
http://www.aclj.org/
That second organizatio has, in addition to the web site, a Radio/TV program and actually has lawyers like the ACLU, except they are usually on the opposite side.
Like I said, I am still rebuilding my stuff, and my old list had some weak areas even before the big virus.
What I was trying to say is that the various Conservative Special Interest groups generate a lot of stuff specific to their area that should be pushed forward as a combined common alternative to the AP.
I think I will try to post a thing over in the open forums in a few days with some possible sites that could be used this way.
In the mean time, here is one Blogger that I think should get more attention (although she does have her ups and downs)
http://drsanity.blogspot.com/
American Rifleman and
October 24, 2007 - 23:09 ET by MikeBAmerican Rifleman and American Hunter, two publications by the National Rifle Association have one or two pages each issue called The Armed Citizen which has stories of ordinary people who have used their firearms to protect themselves.
I also recall links on various threads here at NB to other publications that print like stories.
"A communist is someone who reads Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx." Ronald Reagan