Right-wing blog littlegreenfootballs.com found Reuters to have added and darkened smoke in a photo. [Please note excessive photoshopping has been permanently condemned by the left.]
For this scoop, LGF has been celebrated by the mainstream media. The CSM fawns all over him in an article entitled “A blogger shines when news media get it wrong:”
How did this 50-something computer programmer and Web designer turn into an Internet celebrity, sought out by CNN and regularly roasted by liberal critics? The answer lies in expertise, diligence, and imagination.
This week, his website – littlegreenfootballs.com – is attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors, thanks to his Reuters exclusive. (The origin of the site’s unusual name is a secret.)
Armed with a tip from a reader, Johnson was apparently the first person to prove that an Aug. 5 Reuters photo of Beirut after an air attack had been faked.
Ahem. “Faked” is a strong word, but the media can never be too friendly towards the Right. After all, Charles Johnson is the new MSM darling. Just check out his own site, where he lists his interviews with Good Morning America, talk radio stations, the NYT, the WaPo, and more.
Meanwhile, the media can’t work hard enough to marginalize the left blogosphere.
Remember what David Brooks said on the Chris Matthews Show?
DAVID BROOKS: Whoever the Democratic candidate, that is the weakness of the Democratic party, they’ve got the blogs and the netroots who are semi-nuts and they insist on a Stalinist line of discipline.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: I love your objectivity.
DAVID BROOKS: It’s objectively true. I did a psychoanalytic test.
Remember how the NYT couldn’t wait to pick up the false story that liberal blogs destroyed Lieberman’s campaign site?
Remember how out of control the Townhall lies got?
Almost every major liberal blog regularly runs pieces exposing biases and even outright lies emanating from major news media sources. For that, we are feared and reviled. When a wingnut blog finds an enhanced (not faked, but enhanced) photo that disproves absolutely _nothing_ about what has actually occurred in Beirut, he is the talk of the nation.
If you don’t think the media fears progressives a lot more than they fear the wingnuts, you aren’t paying attention. To all the wingnuts who carp about liberal media bias, I would ask you this: if that were true, why would they be doing hit pieces on us and puff pieces on you? Would would they be lying about our actions and over-congratulating you for yours? Could it be because you are their unwitting lapdogs and we are not?
Back in April, New York Magazine ran a piece discussing the editor shake-ups at The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Paris Review, and Harper’s. In it, one new chief was quoted as saying:
“We’re all sort of the anti-blogs,” says Roger Hodge, the new editor of Harper’s. “And I think we will eventually triumph over the blogs!”
As long as they’re liberal, anyway.