OxBlog

# Posted 11:47 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

THE BLOGOSPHERIC STEAMROLLER MARCHES ON: On Monday, Paul Krugman began his column with a shout out to Matt Yglesias for exposing the media's [alleged] failure to cover the violence in Iraq after the June 28 handover. Then, just tonight, Jon Stewart interviewed Bryan Keefer of Spinsanity about Spinsanity's new book, All the President's Spin.

While I don't agree with the points that either Matt or Bryan made (although Spinsanity has a great column in today's Philly Inquirer), I think it's very interesting to note how liberal pundits such as Krugman and Stewart are turning to bloggers for criticism of the media and its supposed failure to stand up to the White House spin machine. These sort of arguments, are of course, the inverse of most conservative bloggers' polemics against liberal bias in the media.

Leaving aside the question of who's right (you know where I stand on the issue), I think that a reliance on bloggers to watchdog the media suggest that we are well on our to way to achieving our #1 aspiration: watchdogging the media. It's sort of ironic, I guess. The most important indication of our success as watchdogs is that the media itself, or at least one part of it, is beginning to pay attention.

Which means that now we have to start thinking about how not to get co-opted.

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