I don't have the slightest idea what this means. It is to do with Charles Johnson suddenly realizing that the American right wing is full of lunatics (who knew), and him becoming friends with someone at Vanity Fair who doesn't like a specific fringe racist idiot (who, praise Jesus, no longer sends me crazy emails). Apparently it also involves sophisticated computer technology capable of detecting that Thomas Friedman is full of shit.
Later this year, we’ll be launching a two-pronged campaign by which we hope to increase both the reach and efficiency of the blogosphere, as well as to bring pressure to bear on the media at large. Much of this effort will involve a loose network of bloggers that we’re now in the process of recruiting in order that we might all coordinate on exposing the failures of certain news outlets, for instance. This campaign is being planned in large part around software that’s currently in development by open-source advocate and information technology specialist Andrew Stein and which we believe will assist bloggers in making better use of their medium’s existing advantages; this system will provide for a measurable advance in the manner by which bloggers may distribute, obtain, evaluate, and build upon segments of information. Between the software in question and that skill set unique to those bloggers who have successfully adapted to the information age, we expect that we’ll have some success to the extent that we receive the assistance of others who are similarly concerned about the manner in which Americans are informed about crucial issues.
Not for nothing, but as soon as I hear the words "skill set" I reach for my checkbook, to see if someone has been withdrawing money from my account without me knowing. This sounds like a load of crap pasted out of a business plan inspired by bong hits.
I remember years ago saying that the problem with Jammies Media wasn't that it was conservative, but that it was clownish. Though who's more the clown, the clown who leads, or the clown who ponies up the venture capital? Whatever.
I also somehow missed this in the NYT, an article about Johnson's boring feud with Greater Wingnuttia, which reads like an uninspired Master's thesis about an especially tedious bum-fight. Money quotes:
“I was such a small fish at the time,” Geller said. “I realized I was basically committing blog suicide by going against him. But he was wrong”... “He really did put a knife in the trans-Atlantic counterjihad movement, for a long time. People were running for cover. Nobody wanted to go against him then. He was the king.”
Yes, that's Pam Geller babbling about "the trans-Atlantic counterjihad movement."
Comment not necessary. The real question is why the NYT has thus far ignored my YouTube war with Tintin, which is far more edifying and indeed consequential. Damn liberal bias again, I suppose.