Worth Noting

David Sullivan notes a smart piece by Tim McGuire, which I'd overlooked. Both those guys should be read as often as possible.

And here's something else, since David elsewhere on his blog notes the paper-is-too-liberal refrain that we often see. I wonder how blog complaints about the paper compare to those submitted on paper? Or even by regular e-mail where there's a chance to identify people?

When I go around town, the complaints I hear most often tend to run along the lines of the paper being too sensational (you're just trying to sell newspapers!) or, because I'm often at school sporting events, lack of pictures of someone's kid scoring the winning goal or maybe just running down the field; sometimes there are complaints about "too many ads" when what they really are griping about lack of news. Much more rare is a complaint about an alleged liberal slant (or even the occasional gripe about too conservative). Many times people can't or won't distinguish between what is reported and what the paper itself believes--if you quote Al Sharpton, you must think the same as Rev. Al.

But really, I am convinced there's an army of blog commenters out there determined to spread a political message and the ease of posting comments allows them to do so, regardless of whether that reflects what your readers believe. If you read enough political blogs, you'll recognize the pattern, the meme of accusation and theory. David said it much more elegantly, of course.