Conflict-of-Interest Blogging
There’s a little scrap going on in the lefty blogosphere. Left-leaning blogger Matthew Yglesias, who is now working for the Center for American Progress, wrote a piece slightly critical of Third Way, a centrist think tank. The CEO of CAP made him post a message from her, essentially slapping him down and apologizing to Third Way (whom CAP sometimes partners with).
Whether or not people feel this is appropriate or a good thing, it did get me thinking about RT’s role, since we’re unbought & unbossed.
I related to a couple comments on the situation made at OpenLeft. The first is from an Iowa blogger:
I got blowback from people for criticizing Leonard Boswell and even for reporting that the Organic Consumers Association thought Vilsack would be a terrible choice to run the USDA. Why “trash” Vilsack on a blog in his home state?The difference is that the complaining people don’t have front-page posting privileges at Bleeding Heartland. But if I had to work in the Iowa political world, instead of just commenting on it as a hobby, criticizing powerful Iowa Democrats would create problems for me.
And here’s one from the West Virginia statewide progressive blog:
I was thinking something very similar. Good thing those of us running West Virginia Blue (and so many other state blogs) are just citizen activists, hobbyists, political junkies. As atrios noted, there’s not many economic models that support full time blogging and truly independent editorial.
We’re not into drinking the kool-aid, we’re into constructive criticism– encouraging Dem candidates and committees to “be all they can be”. Which is probably why MCDC chair Joe Morelle won’t pay me back the $12 he owes me. (Kidding. It’s actually $14.) (Seriously, kidding.)
But the West Virginia guy is right– independently speaking truth to power (whether that “power” is electeds, news reporters, or business leaders) doesn’t lead to an avalanche of money or job offers. But I wouldn’t feel right doing it any other way.
What do you think? (You can add answers to the poll if you want, BTW.)
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A currently deceased Elmira resident weighed in on this very topic this week in the New Yorker saying that free speech is “the monopoly of the dead” because we “pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions”. He goes on to say “public opinion being born and reared on this plan, it is not opinion at all, it is merely policy; there is no reflection back of it, no principle, and it is entitled to no respect.”
An argument can also be made that he wrote under a pseudonym for that very reason.