Pot, Meet Kettle

Earlier in December, I invited Nick Coleman to appear on the Northern Alliance radio program. We were going to talk, in theory, about the Maxfield School flap between him and Craig Westover.

Coleman responded with an angry, petulant, frankly wierd voice-mail message. I won't circulate the tape or the transcription of the call - it was made with a presumption, one presumes, of privacy - but the gist was that Coleman would be happy to appear on the show, if we met two conditions; paid $1,000 to Maxfield School, and, to quote the maestro himself:

"Um, but why dont' you put together a list of the twelve shittiest things you've written about me, personally, or my wife or my children on your website.

Hmmm? Why don't you send me a list and I'll just, I'll make it easy for you, because I know there's a lot more. But why don't you just put together twelve, your top thirty dozen of the shitty things that you've said about me, and then I'll think about whether I should appear on the radio with you, and talk about something of importance to the people."

Our exchange continued, with Coleman making mysterious comments about his responses to be, both in print and, in an interesting, cryptic aside in one email, legal.

Well, we've seen his print responses - his "Captain Fishsticks" piece and then yesterday's national laughingstock. Pffft. As to legal responses; neither I not any member of the Northern Alliance has ever said anything "Shitty" about Nick Coleman or his family. We've criticized his leaden writing, shoddy reporting, harping politics and non-existant social skills. Fraters satirized Nick Coleman and Laura Billings' marriage, one of the most hilarious bits of web-based satire ever written, and - this seems fairly obvious - clearly satire. Which Nick Coleman can call "shitty" if he likes, but he's a public figure; he's a journalist that "knows stuff", he should be able to handle a little criticism from bunch of peasants writing from paneled offices in their underwear, or whatever.

But the exchange prompted me to think - what standards do we bloggers follow?

The answer, according to Powerline: a hell of a lot more than Coleman has to:

Among other things, the editor advised me that Coleman's attack on us involved no reporting, and that the column's factual misrepresentations were to be read in that light. Moreover, certain of the misrepresentations were to be construed as sarcasm rather than taken at face value.

Finally, according to the editor, Coleman's false assertion that he didn't know and we didn't say whether we might be on the take from some campaign, political party or anonymous benefactor, appeared to violate no Star Tribune standard. In his meeting with Coleman after my discussion with the editor yesterday morning, Coleman had told the editor that he "assumed" we received a stipend from the Claremont Institute. (Wrong. As we expressly stated here in response to Coleman's slander earlier this month, "we are not paid by anyone" for our work on the site. What part of "not" doesn't Coleman understand?)

I asked the editor what standards Coleman's column was subject to at the Star Tribune. He said he didn't know; he would have to research the answer to that question and get back to me. But they do have standards, which is of course a relief!

No editorial oversight. No fact-checking. No standards that anyone can name without research. No public accountability.

So exactly how is it that Nick Coleman is a more reliable reporter than any good blogger, again?

Posted by Mitch at December 30, 2004 11:25 AM | TrackBack