From The Observer
Bitter battle in the US blogosphere
American journalists, accustomed to scrutinising others, are nowadays just as likely to be scrutinised themselves. The internet firmament is littered with websites monitoring the US media for evidence of impartial coverage, and Newsbusters.org, which launched quietly last week, looks set to become the most influential.
Financed by the Media Research Centre, a privately funded organisation founded by Reaganites in the late Eighties, it is dedicated to 'exposing and combating liberal media bias', according to its masthead. The first postings provide 'evidence' that CNN is against the Iraq war and the 'mainstream media' is pro-abortion. The site carries a daily cartoon depicting the travails of a fictional White House press spokesman, who faces a daily onslaught of left-wing questions from a pinko press corps.
The MRC is well known in the US for its critique of the American media and its inherently liberal bias; it has even set up an internship to train conservative journalists. Similar sites exist at the opposite end of the political spectrum. Media Matters (www.mediamatters.com) documents the entertainingly outrageous liberal-bashing antics of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, which makes little effort to disguise its conservative agenda, despite its 'Fair and Balanced' motto. There is little room for sentiment in this war of words; last week the MRC's own website marked the death of legendary anchor Peter Jennings by attacking his record, which prompted Media Matters to rage that it was 'exploiting' Jennings' death.
A hastily penned tribute was subsequently added to the MRC site, but Newsbusters.org is already carrying a sarcastic riposte to Media Matters' original complaint. If this sounds like self-indulgent navel-gazing, it is worth remembering that intense internet scrutiny can make the news as well as criticise it. Last year, conservative 'bloggers' queried a CBS News lead about President Bush's military record, prompting an investigation that ended with a CBS retraction, an apology and the early retirement of another respected 'anchorman', Dan Rather. Given that Britain has an even more partisan press, and (according to many) a left-leaning state-funded broadcaster, it's surprising that similar cyberspace chatter is barely discernable over here.
