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You are here: Home / This Is A Scandal?

This Is A Scandal?

by John Cole|  October 9, 20034:17 pm| 10 Comments

This post is in: General Stupidity

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This piece in the Opinion Journal is the dumbest non-scandal ‘scandal’ I have EVER heard about:

In an article on Howard Dean’s fund-raising, The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress, offers the interesting revelation that as part of his effort “to maximize his online fundraising punch,” Dean has been “paying ‘bloggers’ or professional Internet surfers to keep the enthusiasm up on his website.”

We’re all for free enterprise, but this does point up an advantage of “old media” over bloggers. Professional journalists may have their biases, but those of us who work for big-media outfits are bound by codes of ethics under which taking money in exchange for favorable coverage would be a huge no-no. Many bloggers, of course, genuinely are independent commentators, but there’s no easy way of knowing which ones are on the take.

Hunh? Here is the article BotW refers to:

Dean has done other things to maximize his online fundraising punch, like reinvesting money into expanding donor lists and paying

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Reader Interactions

10Comments

  1. 1.

    Moe Lane

    October 9, 2003 at 4:20 pm

    Thought so. First rule of thumb for the Internet: if it sounds too good to be true, it is.

  2. 2.

    Ricky

    October 9, 2003 at 5:06 pm

    I think Taranto (and several others, maybe) misread that. On their behalf, it could’ve been written better, but it appears he read it with a jaundiced eye.

  3. 3.

    Pauly

    October 9, 2003 at 5:30 pm

    People’s reading comprehension sucks. I blogged on this a few weeks ago, and this is a great prime example.

  4. 4.

    Jim

    October 9, 2003 at 6:06 pm

    Not to defend BOTW, but the article says that Dean has been “paying ‘bloggers’ or professional Internet surfers to keep the enthusiasm up on his website.” Like you, I read that statement to mean that he’s paying his own bloggers to provide content on the website. But it isn’t crazy to read it as saying that he’s paying other outside bloggers to blog about his blog.

    In other words – while dumb, BOTW is certainly not guilty of the dumbest statement of the week.

  5. 5.

    Oliver

    October 9, 2003 at 6:29 pm

    The WSJ and Charles Johnson (of LGF) have intentionally misread this story in a bit of amateur hour spinning. Pathetic.

  6. 6.

    M. Scott Eiland

    October 9, 2003 at 8:34 pm

    To recycle an old cliche, I’d slam Dean for spitting on the sidewalk if the opportunity arose, but this is an asinine thing to get on his case about.

  7. 7.

    Ricky

    October 10, 2003 at 5:52 pm

    The WSJ published an update & admitted that they misread.

    YOU CHARGED THEM WITH LYING, Oliver. To say that you owe them an apology is an understatement.

  8. 8.

    micky das

    December 8, 2003 at 7:22 pm

    yes i agree with everyone on here right on

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. Heretical Ideas says:
    October 9, 2003 at 5:38 pm

    I TOLD YOU!

    I told you people’s reading comprehension sucks!! Dean has done other things to maximize his online fundraising punch, like reinvesting money into expanding donor lists and paying

  2. Oliver Willis: Like Kryptonite To Stupid says:
    October 9, 2003 at 6:45 pm

    Dumb. Dumb. Dumbest.

    I met James Taranto of the WSJ OpinionJournal at BloggerCon this past weekend. In all honesty, yeah, he fit my mental stereotype of what someone who would write for the WSJ editorial page would look and act like – but…

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