The Next Liberal Pundit At The Post
By K. Daniel Glover | September 29, 2009
The Washington Post is conducting a pundit contest to find "the next Dana Milbank or Eugene Robinson." Michelle Malkin doesn't expect the newspaper to get many takers:
The barriers to entry into the opinion journalism market are zero. Gatekeepers have been rendered obsolete by blogs, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. And the allure of a "mainstream" media affiliation has fallen exponentially in value.
Malkin is right about the nonexistent barriers to entry, but I disagree with her underlying point. The Post has a huge audience, and I suspect that many bloggers, not to mention aspiring journalists, will jump at the chance to have their work seen by the readership of a paper the size of the Post, even when it is in decline.
Remember, too, that more liberals than conservatives want to be journalists. Contestants also aren't competing for a long-term job at the Post, but a baker's dozen of clips from there might boost the winner's chances of landing a job in a tight and transforming media market.
The bad news: Bright, young conservatives need not apply. The Post has a habit of hiring up-and-coming liberal pundits. Odds are good that the contest is aimed directly at that market.
If readers alone were to pick the winner, a conservative writer with a strong social network might stand a chance. But you can bet that the "panel of Post personalities" won't include more than token conservatives, and the panel will be the final arbiter.
A conservative has about as much chance of winning a contest to be the The Washington Post's next pundit as he or she does of becoming the "Opinion Media Monitor" (aka, "Secret Agent Editor") at The New York Times.
K. Daniel Glover is the online communications strategist for AIM for Accuracy In Media. He has worked as an editor, writer and new media specialist in the Washington area since 1991, spending most of that time at National Journal and Congressional Quarterly.
8 Comments | Post a Comment
I spent a week as a guest blogger at the Washington Post Opinion page from Feb 28-March 3, 2006. I was thrilled to see my ugly mug listed right beside Krauthammer, and thought it was cool to be the first conservative to blog there (only Josh Marshall and Andrew Sullivan had gone before me) but the traffic wasn’t overwhelming.
I wouldn’t stake your career on the exposure you get here, but at least it is nice for the Post to recognize they need a new infusion of talent.
I just hope, when i win, I get to be anonymous like the NYTimes “Opinion Media Monitor.”
I just don’t want to deal with unpleasantness!
Dave,
Trust me, over the years we have had our share of bad apples from the left and the far left. There are many here who are Independents and several Republicans which are more than able to give you a less Conservative view.
But the get bombarded with facts, and you cannot fight the truth when surrounded by those who want their country back, and get the corruption out of “both” main parties. When you can admit your own party did wrong too, it is hard to argue with, but by God they never went this far.
In 1994 (the first mid-term election), again in the General Election in 1996, then in the 1998 Mid Terms, I voted to rid the Republicans who were out of control spending. They shattered my hopes of a small Government and pork barrel spending. Many of them were acting just like the Liberals on Spending. They all blew it for all of us Real Conservatives.
Dave and Ebony aren’t looking for truth, they are looking for someone who agrees with them, no matter what the facts say. I have not found a liberal who HONESTLY evaluates websites. All they want is to be a lemming who follows blindly the liberal mantra. The only pretend here is liberals who post, because this is accuracy in media, which the liberal mainstream media hate, because it holds their feet to the fire for the lies and misleadings they post. Just as often as not, this site has take Republicans and Conservatives to task for not printing the truth.
Sure enough, this site is conservative, but at least they don’t pretend to be anything else. When’s the last time you heard the Post or NYT admit to being liberasl?
As far as conservative goes, just how often have you read about something in AIM being inaccurate?
Not too many convincing rebuttals to this material ever sent out by the left-wing websites.
Liberals, Socialists, Marxist, and even some Communists who call themselves “Good Americans” have already been indoctrinated, they just have yet to realize it…Such things as a “Living Constitution” news folks, it is not. Despite what Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Murtha (whom I am especially disappointed in, as he was a U.S. Marine), and all the others out there.
They can change what is written in the history books, they can indoctrinate our children (most of us just undo it anyway), we do not need to lengthen the school year to make our children smarter, we need to teach them the basics. Math, Reading, Grammar, Science/Biology, Writing, COMMON SENSE most of all. Stop wasting time on the BS…But most of all, displine and respect, first and foremost.
I have even noticed so-called intelligent people who have graduated from Colleges. News Anchors and guests who supposedly have multiple University degrees and or PHDs, and even written in Newspapers use words such as “Stupider”. Folks, that is not a word, and it used is frequent. I have even heard it from many of our friends across the isle, and I do not mean Franken who is only a Human biologically and has the brain of an amoeba.
Obama during the Campaign borrowed a line from Jefferson, “Judge me by the people I surround myself with.”, I have looked an who Obama has surrounded himself with, and it is frightening. I’ll stop here as I have an appointment, but will leave you with this, and it fits everyone of the Left:
Lenin said:
“A lie told often enough becomes truth.”
September 29 at 1:28 pm | #1 | Link
I just found this site and read a few articles. They were all conservative. I was hoping for something that got at both ends of the pretend.
I appreciated the article taking Fox to task for hiring someone with a convoluted association with a cop-killer. Fox should not have to hire faux-liberal punching bags for Bill O’Rielly if they were intellectually honest.