I’m going to start a new non-profit.  With help from my anonymous donors, I’m going to defend leftybloggers from people who attack their own logical, rhetorical and ethical lapses. I’ll call myself a “Citizen Advocate”.  I’ll even publish a Code of Ethics.  To wit:

1. I will defend leftybloggers to the best of my ability against having their rhetorical, logical and ethical flubs dissected
2. If I screw up, I’ll admit my failure
3. I’ll be honest about my motivations, so people can judge for themselves my credibility.  I won’t try to pass myself off as something I’m not. 

There.  I should be legal now.  Onward and upward.

The other day, Learned Foot started digging into one of Minnesota Monitor’s financiers. 

Yesterday, a fella named Bretton Jones, writing for a blog called “Minneapolitics”, swung at Foot’s fastball like Stevie Wonder going for a Johann Santana slider at 3-2…

…ooops, sorry.  I forgot Rule 1 of my Code of Ethics.  Let’s try again. 

Bretton “Mister” Jones “And Me” took a mighty thwack at Foot’s piece:

Let’s go a’ dissecting shall we?

“But we rip mostly because they are a paid propaganda arm of the Democratian Party (not in actuality, but de facto), who try to sell themselves off as a legitimate news source.”

What is the Kool Aid Report a de facto propaganda arm of?

Mr. Jones, are we sure we’re clear on the concept?

Learned Foot is clear about the fact that he’s a satire-oriented “Thunderjournalist” with explicit biases.  He has never passed himself off as a journalist (although when he puts on his “researcher” cap – he’s a lawyer, after all – he routinely shreds the Monitor, the Strib and other purported “journalistic” outlets). 

The Monitor, however, does try to pass itself off as “journalists”, albeit “progressive” ones.  The goal seems to be to present something passing as “news” to the audience.  Foot is merely showing that audience – those who don’t already know, anyway – the funding that motivates their biases.

It’s called “transparency”.   

 Next they pull from another blog [Mine, as it happens.  Mr. Jones apparently doesn’t know how to link].

“We conservative bloggers give the Minnesota Monitor a hard time. As has been amply observed by many local center-right bloggers, the MinMon is supported by the “Center for Independent Media”, which until fairly recently shared offices with “Media Matters for America”.

So this guy has proven that there were people at MM4A that had an idea to form an org to give grants to media orgs to create solid citizen and/or advocacy-oriented journalism.

Um, no, Brandon, and that’s really not the point.  OF COURSE I haven’t “proven” anything – although the fact that they shared office space certainly lends the appearance of a connection, something the reader should be aware of – but the point is, we dont’ know where their funding comes from.  If they want to pass themselves off as “journalists”, bully for them, but unless they’re open about disclosing the hand that jerks their leashes, someone needs to find it out for the audience.  

Then he drops the SOROS-BOMB. Watch much Bill O’Reilly, fella?

Actually, no.  Never have.  Go back to Talking Point Central and get a new cliche!

And citing Soros in caps may pass for cutesy among the “truthiness-based community”, but that pesky fact of the Center for Independent Media’s old connection to Soros-funded Media Matters just keeps rearing its head.  

Mr. Jones returns to citing me:

“The Center for Independent Media pays a group of local bloggers a fairly fat stipend, by blogging standards, to write for the Minnesota Monitor. One must, on the surface, give the CIM and the Monitor some points for at least trying to put up a good appearance; they bandy their “Code of Ethics” about with giggly abandon.”

Now compare what MN MON and CIM do to what Fox News is and ask yourself which is a greater affront to reality.

While the Fox News reference is a strawman, and a dumb one at that, to be fair I did expect a Halliburton reference.  Point for Mr. Jones.

Everyone knows not only Fox’s purported orientation, but the sources of its funding.  It’s a publicly-held corporation.  Rupert Murdoch is among the most public people in the world.  There is no mystery. 

On the other hand, the Monitor would have the uninformed reader (what other kind of liberal reader is there?) that they are an organic, independent body that owes no fealty above the Center for Independent Media.  Foot, and the rest of us, are showing that it’s simply not true.

Which doesn’t bear on their right to present their product, their way.  We’re just making sure the full story is available to the reader (since the Monitor damn sure won’t).   

 Sure MN MON exists to push a certain values-laden agenda. So do I. Is this some big f-ing secret? No. This Thursday I will be doing video coverage at Fair Vote MN’s Fund Raising Party to promote IRV in St Paul. Whether or not I’ve (not yet) recieved funding from the CIM wouldn’t be an issue either way. I do it cuz I love it and like meeting cool new people. If I got paid, whatever.

“I think it’s fair to say that some of their “journalists” make a game effort to try to meet that “code”; an examination of Minnesota Monitor’s coverage shows that the “code” gets ignored when convenient. And while questions have been raised about CIM’s funding, they’ve never revealed anything – although the phrase “liberals with deep pockets” has slipped out in informal conversation.”

Got any examples? Didn’t think so.

Um, Mr. Jones?  I shouldn’t have to babysit your narrative for you, but I’ll show you some mercy.  Your post – the one I’m fisking at this moment – started with an example from Learned Foot.  A minor, but I might suggest important point.   You following me?

Didn’t think so…

DAMN!  I just realized – I’ve breached my Code of Ethics again!  Where I set out to defend Mr. Jones, I’ve lapsed into attacking him!

OK.  Cleansing breath.  Back on task.

The rest of the article is mostly the author, who doesn’t use their real name, blathering about various grants given out by the Sunlight Foundation to promote transparency and ethics, used in “quotes” of course, while never once pointing out a contradicting act on behalf of one of the organizations. I hope they’re not trying to sound all revealing and suggestive, cuz all I see are facts.

Right.  That was Foot’s point. Facts.  Facts that it’d be useful for the otherwise-uninformed reader – the only kind the Monitor would seem to have, except for those of us who read it for fisking material or for gross, unacknowledged journalistic gaffes (at best; at worst, systematic violations of intellectual property rules) to know when assessing this partisan organ’s credibility.

In the end this guy’s just pissed off cuz nobody gave him any money.

I’ll hand it to you, Bretton “Mister” Jones:  what you lack as a writer, you make up for as a clairvoyant.

No, I’m lying.  You don’t.

And…crap…I see that I’ve wandered away from my mission as a Citizen Advocate again.  I’ve trashed my “Code of Ethics”…

…or not.   Depending on who funded me in the first place.

Wouldn’t you like to know who!

No, not really.  This blog’s entire funding comes from advertising.  And I disclose, immediately, every consideration that I get outside of ad money. 

Note to the Monitor:  try it sometime.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 6:14 am and is filed under Blogs, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.