60 Minutes Courting Bloggers

60 Minutes has had a rough season with bloggers. Back in September, they ran a special report in which they showed documents that raised questions about President George W. Bush's National Guard service. The story was reported by CBS anchor Dan Rather himself. A whole slew of bloggers like Ratherbiased.com didn't believe the documents and began a hermeneutical tear-down, delving into the esoterica of font design and the availability of specific IBM Selectric II typewriter models on U.S. military bases in the early 1970s. The critics were relentless but they were also apparently onto something. The evidence mounted that the CBS documents were forgeries and in the face of questions CBS stonewalled. When the finally issued their retraction and apology it was too late: the career of Dan Rather had taken a hit from Memogate. Two weeks ago Rather announced he was taking early retirement from his anchor job at CBS.

CBS News has learned that political bloggers aren't just a cute story to be inserted as filler when the anchor needs a pee break. Back in 1998, Matt Drudge proved that "rouge" internet sites could make the news when he broke the Monica Lewinsky story (or rather elevated it from something all the insider reporters knew to something they all had to report on). And in 2004 his prot�g�s are proving that informal networks of "nobody" bloggers can successfully take on pillars of the establishment. (Update: On the day I got my call, a CBS website story announced that blogs are increasingly gaining influence and explored the possibility of government regulation of political blogs.)

So now CBS News publicists are courting bloggers. That's great: hey, if y'all want to buy me that new Treo Smartphone or a gift certificate to Gohn Bros. I'll say Dan Rather is hotter than an armadillo sunning himself between the yellow lines on the interstate (okay, I'm not good imitating that Texas hoohaw of his). Readers shouldn't feel too sorry for Rather, as his retirement as anchorman will be as a full-time correspondent on 60 Minutes. For those interested in what publicity can buy, check Technorati's list of blogs that have linked to the 60 Minutes piece (15 as of 5:00pm, three hours to showtime).

I've covered the Canadian resister story on Nonviolence.org a few times, mostly to comment on it's media appeal. A certain generation love anything that reminds them of the glory years of 1968. The excitement over the "Deserters" is like that around the unlikely possibility of a new draft: both are fed as much by nostalgia as they are newsworthiness. Both are also ways for older activists to claim the banner of youth activism while actually ignoring youth activists, something I've explored in Peace and Twenty-Somethings

Update 7:00pm

There's nothing that gets the blogosphere more excited than blogging about blogging. Like any good blogger worth their salt, ratherbiased.com checked Technorati and their refer logs and found this post. It's now a headline, CBS Recruiting Anti-War Bloggers to 'Talk Up' Army Deserter Story?. I purposefully used "courted" rather than "recruited" since the publicist didn't give me anything but a link (no Treo awaited me when I got home tonight, alas). The commentary to the ratherbiased.com article is pretty good, though. Although I disagree with the politics I do believe the blogs can't be controlled and think the publicist's phone call was more amusing than effective--sure I linked, but it's a story I've been covering anyway.

One of the problems with political blogs is that we spend a lot of our time commenting on each article that appears in the mainstream news media. We're often very reactive. Yes, we may be challenging Dan Rather and the geriatric news set but we're spending a lot of time watching them and they're still largely dictating what we cover. It's over a year since I worried I was using Technorati too much for my inspiration. Anyway, it's good to see the ratherbiased.com link. And it's hilarious to see a commenter accuse me of taking "marching orders from on-their-way-out geriatrics" (someone's not read my blog much, ahem).

Update 7:14pm

Oh now little green footballs has picked up ratherbiased's post about my personal website post (this page) about my Nonviolence.org post which of course was about the CBS News website. Readers with PhDs in postmodern hermenuetics will no doubt note that even the CBS News link is a post about their TV show. Marshall McLuhan is smiling in his grave.

I think it's time for Salon to post to all this in some expose about how the whole blogosphere is just posts on posts. If they posted an article like that, I'd post to it. Certainly.

Update 7:32pm

Wait a minute. An hour ago it was just lil' ol' Nonviolence.org and a handful of obscure websites linking to the CBS News article. Now it's ratherbiased.com and lgf. Hey, that publicist is going to get a big bonus now. My Quaker Ranter post is getting CBS a lot more hits than the Nonviolence.org one. Note to CBS: Here's my PayPal link.

Instapundit and The Volokh Conspiracy have jumped on the blogosphere bandwagon, but they're both pretty wussy in not linking directly to my article. The points that Volokh make are the same ones I make. My fellow left-wing conspiracist NoCapital has also linked. Wonkette's jumped on the bandwagon; she linked directly to this site (kudos) but intentionally misunderstood what site we were talking about (Nonviolence.org) just to get a cheap joke in.

Why do so many of these bloggers remind me of the cool kids in junior high school. It's all there: the snarky attitude, the insider lingo and jokes, an obsession with self and one's place in the pecking over anything real. Here's Wonkette's description of herself: "I see my job as making the funny happen... People do things worth mocking whether they are conservative or liberal so I mock them all. No one is above my scorn." Exactly. The words of a self-obsessed junior high princess. Are these even really political blogs? I mean, really?

Random Later Updates

Who's kidding who with all this feigned outrage? For those missing the irony gene: the Nonviolence.org PayPal account currently has a balance $6.18, the bulk of which comes from the last donation--$5.00 back on November 20th. My corner of the left wing conspiracy is funded by the vast personal wealth I accumulate as a clerk in a religious bookstore. Wonkette's pages advertise "sponsorship opportunities," she's a recent cover girl on New York Times Magazine and her husband is an editor at New York magazine. Eugene Volokh has clerked on the U.S. Supreme Court (for Sandra Day O'Connor), teaches law at UCLA and just had a big op-ed in the Times. Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds teaches law at the University of Tennessee, has served on White House advisory panels, and is a paid correspondent for MSNBC. Yet he, like the others, calls a two minute phone call "recruiting"?

These guys aren't really blogging in their PJ's, folks. They are paid professional political operatives who work, socialize and literally sleep with those in power in the MSM and political parties. I'm beginning to think the real internet interest comes from the fact that this top tier of bloggers is totally in bed (literally) with the MSM. Their income comes from their connections with media and political power. Their carefully-crafted fascade of snarkish independence would crumble if their phone logs were made public. By mentioning the existance of blog-targeting publicists, I've threatened to blow their cover.

By mentioning the existance of blog publicists, I've threatened to blow their cover. Pay no attention to the men behind the curtains: my social gaffe was in telling the story of how the MSM courts bloggers.