If you replaced the words "Huffington Report" with "The New York Times" or any other MSM organization in context of the George Clooney flap of the last couple days, Arianna Huffington would be leading the charge to skewer and denounce that entity. Instead she, and the vocal bloggers always scouring news reports for the smallest mistake, have said, well, hardly anything. What are we to take from this episode – that bloggers operate under a separate set of rules than what they hold the MSM to?

If CBS News had quoted someone by name and that person had later claimed it to be a false representation, we would have been scrambling to find out what exactly happened and would get no quarter from the bloggers until we did (that's basically what Clooney has said about a post that appeared under his name on Arianna's blog). Just a couple months ago, The Washington Post ombudsman made a factual mistake in a column which resulted in a huge controversy – complete with cries of censorship, bias and hate speech.

The Clooney-Huffington disagreement has made the gossip pages in print, and gotten a response from Huffington on her blog (as well as one from a fellow blogger).

Huffington herself calls it a "misunderstanding," and we're willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on that. One wonders whether she'll think twice in the future before deciding whether or not to give others the same courtesy, but I somehow don't think anyone should hold their breath for it. Still, there is at least one blogger who's asking questions. This, from David Mastio at InOpinion.com:

So, about this little kerfluffle going on between Arianna Huffington and George Clooney about the supposedly/maybe/maybe not fake blog posting by Clooney that appeared on The Huffington Post, who cares right? Well, maybe there are some editorial page editors around the country who ought to be a little nervous.

Last April, Tribune Media Services announced that they were going to syndicate blog posts from The Huffington Post to newspaper opinion sections around the country. I assume they've had some success since I have spoken with a few editorial page editors who say they signed on.

More:

The whole journalism ethics thing is not what really pisses me off here. I think it is great that TMS is trying this idea out. And I am glad that there are editorial page editors out there interested in trying out new stuff. (Hey, call me.) Newspapers have to be doing new things.

But when TMS appears to be sending fake content out to newspapers – blog posts that are written by PR flunkies and Huffington Post staff writers – then newspaper editors are naturally going to feel burned. And they'll be less likely to try out other new things.

Update: Huffington has posted more on the Clooney flap, asking, "is the blogosphere powerful or what?" More:

It was a testament to the power of blogging, and it's why I remain, despite the dustup, an unrepentant evangelist for the value of bringing to the blogosphere some of the most interesting voices of our time that are not already there.

So while this is definitely the last time I'll rely on an okay-to-publish from a publicist, it most assuredly won't be the last time I'll recruit for the blogosphere and try to get the uninitiated to blog. Even folks who don't know a hyperlink from a permalink or who need a Blogging 101 tutorial and a lot of hand-holding in the process.

But, some have asked, is a blog still a blog if it contains repurposed material? My answer is: absolutely. Who cares if the ideas were first expressed in a book, a speech, a play, or an interview? The medium isn't the message; the message is the message. With the right medium providing the needed amplification.

Update II: Buzz Machine's Jeff Jarvis weighs in on what he terms "Bloggate":

I find it amusing and tragic. It's amusing that anyone would think of having ghost writers for blogs — which are, by their essence and definition, personal. How Hollywood can this go: 'I'll have my person link to your person'? And it's tragic that we're so addicted to celebrity that anyone would go so far as to manufacture the voice and views of a star just because he is a star. Surely we have learned that people's opinions don't get smarter when they get famous — quite to the contrary. Huffington was wrong to try to create a faked-up post under Clooney's name — and wrong to want to. This now affects the credibility of all the stars who post there. They need to guarantee now that all the views of the famous there, no matter how amazing, are written by them: No bionic opinions allowed. If you don't care enough to write a simple blog post, then you don't care enough.

I wrote a piece this morning called "Is This Column." It may be of interest to Public Eye Gazers as it deals neuroscience and social science research into the ways we process political information. Students of bias will find it relevant, I hope.

The Anchoress, a frisky friend of Public Eye made some interesting points about the column, giving me a chance to expand a few points, rather informally. Some of the other comments are interesting in all kinds of ways that I won't bore you with, or get myself in trouble over.

The ever-watchful Romenesko points us to an interview in Denver's Westword newspaper with former Colorado Senator Gary Hart. While Romenesko highlights Hart's comments about the quality of the network morning news shows, equally interesting is his take on the blogosphere. You see, a few years back, Hart was one of the early-adapters to blogs among the political/celebrity class but it appears he's found the experience wanting and closed the blog in 2004 (although he occasionally posts on Huffington Post) . Here's Hart's take on blogging, from Westword:

A few years back, former Colorado senator Gary Hart boldly waded into the blogosphere -- and before long, he was mired in cyber-muck.

"This was during the run-up to the Iraq war," recalls Hart, 69. "A number of people were saying, 'You've got to run for president' and so forth, because no one else was speaking out. So I opened a blog." He soon discovered that managing this addition to his old website "was very time-consuming, because the responders want you to engage with them. They say, 'I read your blog, and I disagree on this and this and this. Tell me what you think.' And if you start doing that, it's 24/7. It's like going to a public meeting, and everyone in the crowd says, 'This is what I think. Now I want you to say what you think of it.' Every one of them. And the other thing is, the haters are using the system, and they're trying to destroy it. These are people who are ad hominem, hate-filled, and they clog up the blogways with their diatribes and frothing at the mouth. And that kind of takes the fun out of it."

And that's why the blogosphere lost this Hart.

As the risks of reporting from Iraq become more and more evident, reports from on the ground following events such as yesterday's bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra become all the more valuable. Global Voices has a collection of just that – and it's definitely worth a look. They include a link to a blog written by freelance journalist Christopher Allbritton, whose interview with a military commander was cancelled following the incident:

This all happened when I was in the Green Zone today to interview Lt. Gen. Dempsey, commander of the training command. He cancelled his interview, which baffled his poor public affairs office. He commented that what was happening must be really big if Dempsey is canceling interviews as he's usually not involved in the day-to-day war fighting details. ("He's not in the 5-meter knife fight," the PAO said.) Also, I saw several Apache helicopters taking off from the Green Zone, which is also unusual. Usually, it's Blackhawks that fill the air. Other military source sources have said the Americans have scaled back all patrols, especially in Shi'ite neighborhoods.

A link to another dispatch from an Iraqi dentist follows. At his blog, he describes the atmosphere following the bombing:

The situation in Baghdad is bad, bad, bad. I had to flee work early and return home after news of large protests in Shi'ite districts, and several attacks against Sunni mosques in the Baladiyat, Sha'ab and Dora districts by angry rioters. Sunnis are being blamed for the attack against a Shia holy shrine in Samarra, a largely Sunni town.

The streets look empty now, and all stores seem to be closed. I can hear gunfire and American helicopters and jets circling the skies.

If Washingtonpost.com executive editor Jim Brady was looking to heat up his ongoing feud with the blogosphere, his Sunday Outlook column was a pretty effective way to do so. In his missive, Brady reflects on what he learned from the Deborah Howell episode (see here if you need the background details). Here's a bit of what Brady wrote:

Out in the Web woodshed, a handful of bloggers called me gutless or a puppet; some of them compared me to assorted body parts and characterized me as the worst person to come along since, well, Deborah Howell. And any nasty posts I didn't see myself, my friends gleefully provided to me via e-mail. A few friends said they came close to jumping online to defend me, but chose not to for fear they'd be next in line for a public flogging.

This all raises a question: Why are people so angry? It was a mistake, it was corrected. Part of the explanation may be the extremely partisan times we live in. For all the good things it has brought our society, the Web has also fostered ideological hermits, who only talk to folks who believe exactly what they do. This creates an echo chamber that only further convinces people that they are right, and everyone else is not only wrong, but an idiot or worse. So when an incident like this one arises, it's not enough to point out an error; they must prove that the error had nefarious origins. In some places on the Web, everything happens on a grassy knoll.

Another culprit in Web rage: the Internet's anonymity. It seems to flick off the inhibition switch that stops people from saying certain things in person. During the Howell flap, many of the e-mails I received that called me gutless, a coward or both were unsigned.

Maybe this level of anger has been out there for a long time, waiting to be enabled by technology. Forget about writing a letter, getting a stamp and mailing it in. Anger now has an easy and immediate outlet.

The reaction from those easy and immediate outlets was fairly predictable. Over at Crooks and Liars, John Amato writes to Brady:

I believe you really need some blogger training. Call me up and let's discuss it. There are many journalists that know me including some from the Washington Post, so they'll vouch for C&L. I'll show you exactly how many truly obscene comments I get-what I do about them and how you can better run your own operation without making yourself look foolish.

Matt Stoller at MyDD adds:

With this nasty letter in the Washington Post, online editor Jim Brady shows just how aggressive he is willing to be to avoid accountability at his newspaper. It's quite remarkable, actually. He still does not understand what went wrong.

Howell committed an act of journalistic malpractice. She was caught in an error on a very important story, and her reaction to the readership who commented on it was to stonewall. Then she grudgingly admitted an error four days later, decrying partisanship and namecalling the whole time. It was a pathological incapacity to take responsibility.

And BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis writes:

You'd think that newsmen were tough, but the truth is that as a breed, they're crybabies. They are used to dishing it out but not taking it. Oh, sure, they may be defter at the dishing. But ask any civilian who has ever been criticized or misrepresented in print how it feels. They don't get a page of the Post to wail about it.

When the going gets tough, the reflex of the big-media guys is to retreat behind a roll of paper and whine about those people out there. Those people, otherwise known as the public they supposedly want to serve. Those people, also known as us.

Lost in all this were several positive points that Brady made in the piece, including this most encouraging statement regarding how The Post and the Web site are moving forward with interactivity:

The irony of the backlash to my decision to shut off this comment string last month was that we've taken numerous steps during the past year to open up the Post Web site to its readers. We have 80 to 90 hours of live discussion programming every week, almost half of which involve Post reporters and editors. We've launched more than 30 blogs, which allow for reader comments and which have built vibrant communities. On our article pages, we've added links to related blogs. Just last week, we began hyperlinking all bylines on the site to allow readers to more easily send e-mail to Post reporters and editors. We'll continue to add features that allow us to interact with readers.

That's an encouraging development. Too bad it's gotten all bogged down re-fighting the old fight.

It looks like someone at The Washington Post learned a lesson from ombudsman Deborah Howell's battle with the blogosphere. Columnist Anne Applebaum's Wednesday column addressing the Danish cartoon controversy drew some objections from the conservative side of the blogosphere and also resulted in a rare and encouraging dialogue.

In the column, Applebaum wrote that the reaction to the story "has exposed a few less attractive political undercurrents in America." Among those she listed were the "hypocrisy of the cultural left" and the "hypocrisy of the right-wing blogosphere." It was, of course, the latter which drew the attention of those bloggers. Applebaum recalled the reaction to the erroneous Newsweek report that claimed a Koran had been flushed down a toilet by guards at the Guantanamo Navel Base where suspected terrorists were being held. That story, like the cartoons, sparked uprisings throughout the Muslim world. Here's Applebaum's complaint:

Although that controversy was every bit as manipulated as this one, self-styled U.S. "conservatives" blamed not cynical politicians and clerics but Newsweek for (accidentally) inciting violence in the Muslim world: "Newsweek lied, people died." Worse, much of the commentary implied that Newsweek was not only wrong to make a mistake (which it was) but also that the magazine was wrong to investigate the alleged misconduct of U.S. soldiers. Logically, the bloggers should now be attacking the Danish newspaper for (less accidentally) inciting violence in the Muslim world. Oddly enough, though, I've heard no cries of "Jyllands-Posten insulted, people died." The moral is: We defend press freedom if it means Danish cartoonists' right to caricature Muhammad; we don't defend press freedom if it means the mainstream media's right to investigate the U.S. government.

Well, Captain Ed over at Captain's Quarters, took offense:

Perhaps Applebaum has hung around American newsrooms too long to notice the difference, but editorial cartoons express opinion, while news reporting is supposed to deliver facts. Newsweek didn't publish a cartoon of a GI flushing a Qu'ran down a toilet. They reported as fact that American soldiers had done so, with the thinnest of sourcing and without attempting to corroborate the information. Newsweek didn't investigate at all -- they just took the word of a single source and put it in their magazine.

More:

This is yet another of the tiresome examples of writers at the Post attempting to appear reasonable by finding some basis on which to attack all sides of a controversy. Applebaum's reach exceeds her grasp on this point, and she made up for it by trying to rewrite the Newsweek debacle by turning it into a debate on the First Amendment -- a conflict that never arose when Newsweek botched its reporting. It's just another form of pandering.

So far, we're witnessing the sort of one-sided conversations that excel in the blogosphere, where folks often prefer to simply talk past one another. But yesterday, Captain Ed engaged Applebaum and she responded, which was then promptly posted on the blog.Here's part of her response:

The Newsweek affair continues to bother me, because of the widespread assumption, perpetuated on the Right, that the magazine (with which I have no personal association) "lied" in order to smear American soldiers, and therefore deliberately endangered our troops. In fact, they repeated a story - about throwing a Koran in a toilet - which came from Guantanmo inmates, and erroneously claimed the story would be confirmed by an official investigation. That's very, very different from lying in a deliberate attempt to endanger Americans.

You can read Applebaum's full response here but suffice it to say Captain Ed was not fully satisfied with it, writing, "In my opinion, Applebaum still hasn't addressed the main part of my criticism, which was that she indicted the entire 'right-wing blogosphere' by claiming that we all said that it was wrong for the media to investigate government malfeasance."

Yet, as is the case so often when an actual discussion occurs, Captain Ed (who reached out) was more than willing to concede that he had gone overboard in his criticism of Applebaum (who responded):

Where I went overboard, though was accusing Anne of rewriting history, which was too hyperbolic and -- given her work on the Soviet gulag system earlier -- particularly provocative, and I regret it. I still disagree with much of what Anne wrote in this column, but I thank her for engaging me and CQ readers in an honest and professional debate, and encourage everyone to show their support by making a point of reading her columns ... in their entirety, of course.

Will wonders ever cease?

Just when you thought you'd heard all the controversy you were going to hear in this millennium about Wikipedia – there's more! It appears that the online encyclopedia has banned computers in House and Senate offices from altering or creating Wikipedia entries. The ban came after an investigation by The Lowell Sun, a Massachusetts newspaper, revealed that staff for Rep. Marty Meehan (D) made changes to his Wikipedia biography "that replaced negative yet accurate information with content having a more positive slant. Among the changes: removing references to Meehan's promise to serve only eight years," writes the St. Louis Post Dispatch, adding:

Further review uncovered thousands of changes made to other Wikipedia entries by House and Senate staffers since last summer. Unlike the Meehan edits, however, some changes weren't complementary. In one instance, someone from the House wrote that Republican Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia "smells like cow dung." In another, someone removed criticism of Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware from his Wikipedia page.

So, congressional staffers are messing around on the Internet during work hours and comparing political opponents to cow dung. I'm shocked and appalled.

A few months back, we noted that CBS News had introduced a new policy regarding employees' use of personal blogs – they must be approved by Linda Mason, senior vice president of standards and special projects at CBS News. The Washington Times today looks at similar such policies at local Washington, D.C., news outlets. At Washingtonpost.com, for example, "employees must let editors review their personal blogs, said Executive Editor Jim Brady. As long as there are no conflicts of interest, there's no problem." So far, Brady told the Times that there has been no reason to remove anyone's personal blog (removing comments from the Post's blog is a different story.) Some of the news outlets that the Times spoke with have yet to institute any formal policies about personal blogs.

Also unresolved is the apparent litany of legal issues surrounding the existence of blogs. Cyberjournalist links to this article by an attorney who explores whether bloggers are journalists. Defining who is a journalist and who is not was of particular interest when Judy Miller was locked in a legal battle over whether she would reveal her source, and it's probably one that will come up again.

As coverage of the dangers that journalists face in reporting from Iraq reaches critical mass lately, Poynter links to the Freedom Forum's revealing look at how many journalists have been killed covering the Iraq war, compared to Desert Storm, Vietnam, the Korean War and World War II. According to the Freedom Forum, the number of deaths among journalists covering Iraq is surpassed only by World War II.

It was pretty clear what to expect from the Washingtonpost.com's online forum on "the evolving nature of Internet commentary and ethics." After all, the views of those invited to participate are hardly foreign to most of those who pay any attention to this debate (or blogs themselves). The group was made up of Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com, Buzzmachine's Jeff Jarvis, Pressthink's Jay Rosen and Jane Hamsher from firedoglake. But, hopefully many of those who tune in to read the conversation haven't been exposed to all of this before and there were some interesting points made, so let's dive in. (This was set up in response to last week's blowup on a post.blog where comments to the site were closed after a flood of criticism. If you're not up to speed on this story, see here).

In today's forum, there was a lot of chatter about the difficulties involved in opening a site up to outside comments and the gist was: Registration systems help and the discussion usually takes place on a higher plane of civility when identities are attached to comments in some way. The downside to that approach is that it limits participation. Interactivity is important, especially for major media organizations and the Web is a pretty unrestrained place but those who own and operate sites have the right to do what they feel is right with comments. A few of the more interesting highlights follow:

Rosen, on "civility":

"It makes sense for the Post to have rules, and it is their right to decide what they should be. Hate speech has to be beyond the pale. Personal attacks with no substance should be. But rules without an enforcement system aren't rules; they're guidelines. I don't think 'civility' is an especially good guideline. Jim shouldn't ask people to be civil, but to be real, to say what they think, to obey some minimal rules. Sometimes there's a lot to discern in an angry, uncivil response, but if you're worried about civility you're not going to be very discerning."

Brady largely agreed and said he would retire the term.

Reynolds explained why he doesn't have comments on his blog:

"I've never had comments. I get about 1000 emails a day, and I don't have time to look at those, post on my blog, AND moderate comments. And unmoderated comments raise a risk of the kind of thing I mention above, as well as possible libel and copyright issues. I've actually considered bringing someone in to do that, but that seems too impersonal."

Jarvis had an answer on dealing with "hate" speech:

"How does one defuse hate? By facing the bully eye-to-eye, eh?
Nine times out of 10, when someone has come spitting bile at me in my comments, I find that if I bother to address them directly and call them on their behavior toward me, they back off and we end up in a decent conversation."

There was a good deal of talk about how long it took for Howell and the Post to reply to the initial wave of outrage. Rosen:

"The Post can say it 'only' took four days for Howell to acknowledge something amiss, but it only takes four minutes to realize that she was wrong in what she stated as fact about Abramoff and the Democrats. Moreover, she was wrong in a way that 'tracked' with Republican spin, which makes it different from a garden-variety miscue. And on top of that her first statement was begrudging in tone. This created the storm conditions that 'stunned' Howell, and lit up the comment board."

A little later Hamsher echoed that:

"A lot of the uproar came as we waited for that to happen. The last time I looked no correction has been appended to her original column.

This is the ombudsman, it's her job to respond to reader criticism. They set up a system where readers could respond to her column instantaneously and she refused to address those concerns.

That she continues to play the victim only throws fuel on the fire."

And there this interesting exchange, spurred by a reader's question:

Washington, D.C.: "For The Post to continue discussing only the question of public comments without discussing what brought them on in the first place is like talking about the levees and ignoring the hurricane that topped them. I think The Post needs to invite public discussion of the role of its ombudsman, the current ombudsman, and the future of its reporting and accountability to the public."

Jay Rosen: "It would be far better for this discussion if the ombudsman, Deborah Howell, were participating; I would gladly give up my slot. I'd like to know how she sees her job in an interactive age. Also: Who does she represent? I also believe that Jim Brady and Washingtonpost.com should consider having a public editor for the site, not to do what the Post ombudsman does but to make the Post.com more responsive and two-way."

Brady replied that Howell "has chosen for the time being not to any live discussions, but we've talked about it, and you'll see her on here at some point." But most telling about the discussion, and what I've seen of the reaction to this point, is the level at which the animosity between the paper and its critics still exists. There was this exchange:

Jane Hamsher: "The post.com should be thrilled by the passion and intelligence and civility exhibited by the vast, vast majority of commenters.

Over at Kos, someone compared an archived version of the original comments on the "Maryland Moment" blog with the ones that were restored and found only ten that were deemed so "offensive" that they had to be deleted. That's a 99% civility rate. I think most people who run a public board would think that was remarkable.

That's quite different than the description Brady gave to Hugh Hewitt, where he said there were "hundreds and hundreds of comments about her column, and they were very, very nasty, using words that I didn't even know existed."

Even conservative blogger Michelle Malkin said of the posts deleted from the Howell blog that "the comments seemed comparatively tame."

I think people would really like to know why the Post deleted comments that were really intelligent, appropriate and completely non-profane, and continues to characterize these readers as scruffy barbarians."

Jim Brady: "I have made this point countless times, but to no avail. The cached posts you see don't include any of the posts we removed. Simple as that. When we saw them, we took them down, which means they weren't live and thus not on that cached page. So analyzing that page and drawing conclusions is faulty."

Later pressed again on the technical workings of the site's comment section and how many posts were removed, Brady responded:

"I don't know the exact number, but I can assure you it was more than dozen. I removed about 50 myself.

And, Jane, since you obviously don't want to discuss the topic at hand and would instead prefer to play Columbo, let me pose a question to you: I looked at your blog last night in preparation for this, and in addition to all the nice things you had to say about me, I noticed that you often link to 'WaPo' articles that are critical of the Bush Administration and give them your implied endorsement. But then when we publish something that doesn't fit into your worldview, we're called 'shills of the GOP.' Which is it? You can't have it both ways, but you seem to want to."

Later, on firedoglake, Hamsher complained about Brady's responses and issued this challenge:

"Since I've shown my willingness to play by Brady's rules, I challenge him to engage in a dialogue in a neutral playing field. One-on-one, back and forth, no 'background noise,' no place to hide. We can do it in an email exchange, we can do it in a live chat, we do it over at the Huffington Post or any mutually agreeable place where the ground rules are equitable to both parties.

I've done my part. Let's see exactly how brave and committed to "transparency" he really is."

So the discussion continues, and it seems it will for quite some time. Not a lot more I can add to what was discussed in the forum today or what I've said on this subject before. Just one thought though: If interactive discussions are to succeed and become a regular part of the new media landscape then doesn't it need to be a true exchange? And isn't the point of engaging in it to try and add value, a point of view or thought that may not have been previously considered? Isn't the real goal to try and persuade people to one's point of view, not berate them for not already holding it?

Upon opening up our PE in-box this morning, a series of e-mails immediately caught my eye. I noticed them quickly because they were all from the same address and they included links to stories about CBS. Both came from Newsbusters, the blog of the conservative media watchdog group, the Media Research Center. And both linked to posts regarding words used on CBS News programs to describe stories in the news.

In the first instance, it seems Newsbusters is disturbed by CBS' use of the words "domestic spying" to describe the Bush Administration's use of the NSA to eavesdrop on conversations:

"It's been apparent since the story broke about President Bush's terrorism surveillance program that the media wanted to frame the debate as 'domestic spying' and warrantless wiretaps, and nowhere has this been more clear than on CBS's 'The Early Show' this morning [1/24]. In the span of 9 minutes, there were two stories regarding the subject, and four mentions of or references to this topic."

President Bush has a different way of describing the program, calling it a "terrorist surveillance program." Both can be seen as accurate in their own ways, although to this point the majority of the media have used the "domestic spying" angle. What critics object to is the NSA listening into conversations between people in this country (presumably including U.S. citizens) and people overseas (say, Iraq or Afghanistan) that raise suspicions of terrorist activities. Critics claim this breaks the law because the NSA does not seek warrants, either before or after, from a court. Supporters say that if someone on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan is calling someone in New York or Washington, it's probably a damned good idea to find out what they're talking about.

So the fight over phrasing will continue, but it seems to me that when even many Republicans are questioning the way the program is implemented, it's up to the administration to make their case. And they've launched an aggressive effort this week to do just that, one which has received a lot of press coverage. Whether it's called "domestic spying" (as almost every major news organization has done) or a "terrorist surveillance program," the important thing is for the public and our politicians to understand it before making a decision about its worthiness.

These semantic arguments have become commonplace since the arrival of a breed of political consultant that specializes in "framing" issues through "buzz" words – the same type of people who advised Al Gore to wear earth tones. Newsbusters would love for the media to use the phrase "terrorism surveillance" because that jibes with the White House. Would that extend to a Democratic White House if they tried to label a tax increase as a "deficit reduction measure?" Probably not.

While that debate is important, the second point made by Newsbusters is just a little silly. It seems as though blogger Brent Baker is bothered about CBS anchor Bob Schieffer's characterization of the Supreme Court's new look:

"For the third time in fewer than two weeks, the 'CBS Evening News' on Tuesday night made sure that viewers realize how the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito would move the court 'to the right.' (Neither ABC or NBC have shown such concern for alerting viewers as to the ideological direction of the Supreme Court.) Anchor Bob Schieffer recalled how 'the President promised during the election to move this court to the right. And from what we heard in these hearings, what we've already seen with Judge Roberts on the bench, it is moving to the right, isn't it?' Jan Crawford Greenburg of the Chicago Tribune agreed: 'That's right' and so 'that means this court is poised for an historic shift to right on those key social issues like abortion, affirmative action, gay rights, the death penalty, and perhaps even questions of presidential power.'"

I guess this is meant as some sort of complaint about liberal bias, but I have to confess that I just don't see it. First off, it's a statement of fact (or so most conservatives hope). Second, as Schieffer noted in the quote above, it's what the President campaigned on. So, election won, promises kept. Sounds like a good news story for conservatives to me, something they want to hear. The hearings are over, the nomination has been voted out of committee and there is no indication Alito will be filibustered or defeated by the full Senate vote so it has no impact on his chances for getting the job.

And there is no value judgment on what "right" means. Nobody said this is bad news for the country, no one called it a distressing shift to the right, just described what this new court makeup could mean. It's the Supreme Court, of course, which means nobody really knows how it will rule on any given case, but signs are positive for those carrying the conservative cause. Why is pointing that out somehow a bad thing? As one who shares some of those positions, it struck me as validation not some attempt to negatively spin anything.

The back-and-forth, between Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell and her very vocal critics over the past week brings to mind something I heard a woman blogger once say when asked why blogging seemed to be dominated by men. Her response, I'm paraphrasing here, was basically that the atmosphere is not conducive to attracting women. She felt that women were targeted for more cruel and personal attacks (from both genders) than men, something that has kept them from jumping into the fray.

It's a generalization, of course, to say that the Web or the blogosphere is dominated by men and their voices, and there are certainly examples of women weighing in on the most contentious issues of the day, on both the left and the right. But in light of the remarks aimed at Howell which caused the Washingtonpost.com to close down its comments section, we can at least ask these questions. Is there a gender gap on the Web? Are women subjected to different kinds of personal attacks and criticism than men? Would the Post's Web site have felt the need to close its comments if a male were under attack? Or is this entire premise just a false attempt at describing some kind of non-existent glass ceiling on the Web? Just asking.

If you thought the flap over Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell was something, take a look at this growing point of contention on the Web – the Amazon assault. Michelle Malkin has all the details about the campaign, apparently led by left-leaning blogs, to use reader reviews on Amazon.com to drive down the site's rankings of conservative tomes.

Initially, the target was a book by Kate O'Beirne, titled "Women Who Make the World Worse." Now, a new book about President Bush by conservative commentator Fred Barnes is under the gun. It's not yet caused Amazon to shut down its reviews, but it's getting some notice. Malkin:

"Bottom line: The Amazon.com review section has become a joke and a cesspool, and if the company cares about its credibility with a large segment of its book-buying audience, it better fix the problem."

Update: As you can see below, several folks weighing in on this topic note that tactics such as trying to drive down Amazon rankings are not new and have been used against those on the left as well. Thanks for the reminder, that point should have been made. As a clarifier, my point was more directed to playing off the Washington Post controversy and what this atmosphere says about the public discourse going forward. I certainly was not attempting to say that either side of the spectrum has a monopoly on these tactics, only that these examples popped up at the same time.

Looking for a guide to the media revolution? PBS and Mark Glaser have got it covered. Glaser's new blog, MediaShift, "will track how new media -- from weblogs to podcasts to citizen journalism -- are changing society and culture." Glaser, who used to write a column for the Online Journalism Review, will keep track of new media trends and interact with readers. He promises the site will try to "think outside the blog," offering other features that will "include deeper thinking and even interviews" along with a weekly podcast and audio and video elements. So far, it looks like MediaShift is worth a click or two.

Part of the beauty of bloggery (or perhaps the bane, some might argue) is its tendency to offer a steady stream of self-reflection about its own function, meaning and influence. For example, last week we took a look at a little debate that had erupted among some well-known bloggers over the meaning of the blogosphere's most omnipresent moniker -- mainstream media. Who is the mainstream media? Why does the blogosphere torment it so?

In a similar vein, AdAge's Simon Dumenco opened up a semantic can of worms by taking on the meaning of blogging in his recent column – "A Blogger Is Just A Writer With A Cooler Name." His basic thesis is that blogging is less a phenomenon far from the traditional media than it is, simply, an advanced mode of communication:

"…there is no such thing as blogging. There is no such thing as a blogger. Blogging is just writing -- writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology. Even though I tend to first use Microsoft Word on the way to being published, I am not, say, a Worder or Wordder. It's just software, people! The underlying creative/media function remains exactly the same."

If you've treaded on this ground before, you know that for those who bear a blog, that's not a concept so easily swallowed. While Paul Conley doesn't completely disagree, he "winces" at the suggestion:

"Blogging isn't just writing. It is more. It is writing and conversation. And those two things combined make for better journalism than either could alone."

Steve Rubel at Micropersuasion takes a similar position – that the identity of a blog lies in its cultural value and must be considered an entirely different medium:

"While some of what [Dumenco] says is true from a structural POV, from a cultural one it's bunk. Blogging more closely resembles conversation, not writing. It's dialogue, while most writing tends to be more monologue in nature. People don't converse with books or magazines on the same scale that they can with bloggers - oops I forgot that Simon says 'writers.'"

But Dumenco suggests that these dueling identities are less the result of some organic, fundamental difference, but more intentional constructions by both in order to maintain certain perceptions of each other:

"…why does the idea of the blogger as The Other continue to persist? Because many bloggers, of course, like the idea of being all alterna; it's a point of pride, a tenet of the 'blog community' (whatever that is), that bloggers are superior to the musty, lumbering, out-of-touch traditional media. And for traditional-media types, blog/blogging/bloggers are variants of a sort of linguistic armor -- labels that allow old-school-ists to convince themselves that they are the true professionals, and they needn't radically alter the way they work (i.e., work way faster, interact constantly with readers, be vastly more voracious, etc.) to compete with the amateurs, the arrivistes."

Whether one considers "blogger" to be a label that succeeds primarily in isolating the medium from the "mainstream media," rather than exhibiting a fundamentally different form of journalism, Dumenco's final point seems reasonable – that both interests are moving toward the same reality:

"In the very near future, there are only going to be two types of media people: those who can reliably work and publish (or broadcast) incredibly fast, and those ... who can't."

Unless you're glued to C-SPAN watching the Alito hearings (or maybe not), here's a look at some of what we came across here and there on the Web that's worth a quick look:

We'd be remiss if we didn't share with you the news that our mothership, CBSNews.com, has launched a new feature on the site that culls the best of the best blog buzz – and not just that related to the media, that's what we're here for. This week, Blogophile, written by CBSNews.com's Melissa McNamara, rounds up 'spherians coverage of everything from the announcement that the messiah of fake news, Jon Stewart, will be hosting the Oscars to blog reax during Judge Samuel Alito's confirmation hearings.

Speaking of culling the best of the best, Henry Seltzer over at PressGaggle.com pores over the White House Press Briefing transcripts (occasionally, at least) in search of the finest in gaggle humor. Here's a nice bit from yesterday's gaggle:

Q Scott, I just want to come back to this point about irresponsibility, because there seems to be --

MR. McCLELLAN: We're not talking about you.

Q Not today, anyway. (Laughter.)

Ah, woe is the White House reporter.

Another launch caught our attention as well. We mentioned a few months back that the ever-growing trend of citizen journalism had begotten Newsvine, a news site that incorporates elements of information from various news organizations and wire services, blogs and Web sites. Users can also post their own stories on the site and vote for news stories' prominence on the home page. The site has now been launched in beta, which means, as Cyberjournalist explains:

…the site is controlling who has access by using the same approach G-mail used when it launched -- an initial number of beta testers get access, and then anyone who has access can invite others they know to join. So it's starting out with people who are likely to be most engaged in the site, and thus most likely to contribute to its success.

Over at Slate, Jack Shafer comments on the Christian Science Monitor's recent request for a "news blackout" on coverage of the kidnapping of its reporter, Jill Carroll, in order to help authorities handle the case soon after the incident. While Shafer acknowledges that "Nobody can criticize news organizations for agreeing among themselves to embargo kidnapping information for few hours if it might save a colleague's life," he notes that other questions still arise.

"If the press should spike news to help a colleague, how long an interval is decent? Should it be 48 hours, as in Carroll's case? Until the local press reports the story? Until the abducted person's employer confirms the news? Until the U.S. Embassy does? Or until the kidnappers make their announcement on the Web? I don't have any easy answers, just easy questions."