Legal Commentary

The "Bias" Of Blogs

By Big Tent Democrat

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

At Open Left, Tremayne does a study of the so called bias in the respective blogs. He tracked posts on controversial and supposedly unfavorable stories for particular candidates. His study is illuminating:

I searched 5 liberal blogs and, for fun and comparison, 3 conservative blogs using the following terms and Google (and going back 6 months).

Wright (minus Edelman)

Rezko

Ferraro

Bill Shaheen

Keep in mind that the blogs vary considerably in their "size" and I am just reporting total hits so results must interpreted accordingly. Here are the results, in each case from most hits to least:

WRIGHT

MyDD: 24,700

Redstate: 12,700

MichelleMalkin: 11,700

HuffingtonPost: 3,840

DailyKos: 1,150

PajamasMedia: 48

TalkLeft: 32

OpenLeft: 15

As a "pro-Hillary" site it is interesting that TalkLeft only had 32 mentions of Wright except that Jeralyn Merrit has, at times, discouraged discussion of the topic. The same has not been true for the Rezko story.

REZKO

HuffingtonPost: 2,710

MyDD: 1,450

DailyKos: 581

MichelleMalkin: 293

TalkLeft: 251

Redstate: 190

PajamasMedia: 40

OpenLeft: 19

. . .

What Tremayne did NOT note is that Talk Left has taken the position that Obama has done nothing wrong on Rezko and that much of the discussion has been of the legal issues involved in the case itself. This data proves that Talk Left has focused on substance and substantive critique.

Jeralyn is a Hillary supporter and I am severely critical of Obama's political style. But we have NEVER dwelled on personalities and trivial issues. I have been harshly critical of the Media and of many Left blogs. But we have never gratuitously attacked Barack Obama.

Personally, I am very proud of the work we have done this campaign season and believe that a fair appraisal of our writings, our moderation of the site and of the standards we have demanded of ourselves and our community ranks Talk Left second to no other blogs this election season.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 17, 2008 (boomark / email).