As the controversy and debate rages on about JournoList, the question boils down to this: did JournoList prove collusion between liberal journalists?
Glenn Reynolds, aka “Instapundit,” in an op-ed piece in the Knoxville News-Sentinel, thinks so. Here’s how he begins his analysis:
Conservatives have long claimed that the media is biased against them and tries hard to shape stories in ways that help Democrats and hurt Republicans. This has sometimes been dismissed as paranoia – as in my former MSNBC co-blogger Eric Alterman’s book, “What Liberal Media?” – but it turns out to be truer than they imagined.
If this were a Hollywood movie, there would have been clandestine meetings in basements or bars or parking garages. But since it was real life, it was just an e-mail list, called “JournoList,” set up by the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein. It had over 400 members, including reporters at top publications like the Post, the New York Times, Newsweek, Politico, PBS, Time, etc.
Like most email lists, much of the content was profane or sophomoric – like Alterman’s reference to Bush supporters as “f***ing Nascar retards,” public radio producer Sarah Spitz’s expressed desire to stand by laughing as Rush Limbaugh expired from a heart attack, or blogger Spencer Ackerman’s fantasies about shoving conservative pundits through plate-glass windows. Such explosions might raise doubts about these figures’ objectivity or ability to cover news honestly, but overall they are more embarrassing than incriminating.
But there was worse.
Go to the link and read it in its entirety.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.