Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz put Huffington Post blogger Mayhill Fowler on the front page Monday to illustrate how blogs are changing the nature of campaign coverage, but the funniest part came at the end, as Fowler explained she's much more skeptical and distanced now, like a traditional journalist.
Excuse me? Through exposing both Barack Obama's "bitter clingers" comment and last week's Bill Clinton "scumbag" rant against Todd Purdum, Fowler has shown much more skepticism and distance than the parade of Obama-maniacs in the "objective" media this cycle.
In an e-mail, Fowler says she has come to realize that her presence "flummoxes some longtime journalists -- because suddenly here I am, unpaid but as a consequence with much more freedom to find out what's going on out there, and writing for a new and encroaching media that is a Wild Wild West of lawlessness." But she has also had to reexamine her own beliefs.
"Over time, I've become more like a traditional journalist," Mayhill says. "I'm now much more skeptical and much more distanced."
Bloggers only look like a lawless Wild West when compared to the "mainstream" media, which portrayed Obama with all the malice and cynicism of an episode of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."
Memo to Brian Williams: if you ask Barack Obama one more time about how his late mother would greet his success, we will buy you the cardigan and the sneakers. We need tougher questions than an anchorman who sings "Won't you please, won't you please, please won't you be my...president?"
