Online Reporter Quits After Liberals' Expose

Washington Post ^ | 2/10/05 | Howard Kurtz

[kcvl]

The Unknown Blogger
by Jason Fagone
From the March 2004 issue.

An anonymous Philly flamethrower is having a major impact on the national agenda

At the bar of Marathon on the Square, a quiet man in a gray turtleneck sweater sips a martini. It's the night of the Iowa caucuses, and a gaggle of Philly media and political types is watching the returns on a large TV screen. By Philadelphia standards, it's a solid B-list party -- reporters, mayoral spinners, admen. But the most powerful person in the room may be the man in the turtleneck sweater. And no one knows who the hell he is.


There are two reasons for this. One: Turtleneck is an Internet-only celebrity. He runs a hugely influential website called "Eschaton," at atrios.blogspot.com. It's a "blog" -- a sort of news junkie's online diary. He started the site back in April 2002, because "it's better than yelling at the TV set," he says. These days, he says, 40,000 viewers visit Eschaton every day, including bigwigs like columnist Michelangelo Signorile and New York Times attack pundit Paul Krugman.

The second reason for Turtleneck's low profile is way sexier: He's anonymous. He posts under the nom de 'net "Atrios." That's mostly because he has a "public job" in "education," he says, vaguely. "Anytime there's a headline -- ‘Teacher does X' … " he says, trailing off.

So here's what I can tell you about Atrios. He's a college-educated white man of average height and build. He looks about 30, maybe 35. He lives in Center City Philadelphia with his wife (no kids), and he works in the suburbs. Atrios describes his parents as "idiosyncratic socialists," and smiles. None of this is really surprising, given the smart chunklets of anti-GOP rhetoric that Atrios uploads to his site several times a day.

What is surprising, given the site's belligerence -- Atrios recently called a group of GOP operatives "bigoted assholed bastard fuckheads" -- is that in person, he couldn't be shyer. "I'm a nice guy," he says, leaning back and smiling. "I don't pick fights."

Tell that to Trent Lott, who succumbed to the flames of a scandal that was fanned in large part by Atrios and a few other bloggers. Tell that to Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard, who -- when he lamely tried to smear gay Episcopalian bishop Gene Robinson -- was outed by Signorile and Atrios as a board member of a conservative Episcopalian group. Atrios specializes in scoops that reporters should be digging up but don't.


At some point, Atrios says, he'd like to work in politics or the mainstream media, but meanwhile, he's doing fine with the blog. The problem is the stress of staying anonymous -- even his parents aren't clued in. "Frankly," he says, "I'm getting kind of sick of it." If he gets a new job, he may start posting under his real name. For tonight, though, he's just a guy with a martini, shaking his head in amazement along with the rest of us as we watch John Kerry win Iowa.

[Mo1]

Atrios, whose real name is Duncan

He is a nasty bugger

[kcvl]

he has a "public job" in "education,"

Which we NEED to find out about!!! He needs to be exposed too! They want a fight. So do I!

[L.N. Smithee]

Uh huh...meanwhile, CNN's Eason Jordan, who kept his high profile in the MSM despite admitting covering up Saddam Hussein's brutality for years, has his posterior protected by Kurtz now that he's foolishly suggested before a celebrity panel that American troops in Iraq targeted imbedded journalists for death.

What media bias?

[Mo1]

Doesn't matter whether I think they are real or not (though I don't know)

What does it have to do with him being a reporter at the White House

Is the Dkos saying we should go on a witch hunt for any gay reporters at the WH or in DC for that matter??

Personally I think Terry Moran is a tad lite in the loafers ... but I don't criticize him for it .. I look at his reporting

[kcvl]

It seems his name is Duncan Black.


Check the bottom of Atrios's blog:

Eschaton -- a weblog by d u n c a n b l a c k


Posted by: Faun Otter on July 26, 2004 06:53 PM

That's him, officer!
I even have photos of Atrios along with such luminaries as Stranger (Take Back the Media) Peter Hisey and Onehandle (Bartcop forum) at a reception for Julie Hiatt-Steele. Oh, the joy of name dropping when no one has a clue what you are talking about....


Posted by: TalkLeft on July 26, 2004 07:02 PM

It's Atrios. Positively. He's very handsome, I'm sure my photo doesn't do him justice. He's so nice too--he bought everybody water--at $5 a pop, these bottles aren't cheap. We asked him first before we put up his picture.

[kcvl]

It seems his name is Duncan Black.


Check the bottom of Atrios's blog:

Eschaton -- a weblog by d u n c a n b l a c k


Posted by: Faun Otter on July 26, 2004 06:53 PM

That's him, officer!
I even have photos of Atrios along with such luminaries as Stranger (Take Back the Media) Peter Hisey and Onehandle (Bartcop forum) at a reception for Julie Hiatt-Steele. Oh, the joy of name dropping when no one has a clue what you are talking about....


Posted by: TalkLeft on July 26, 2004 07:02 PM

It's Atrios. Positively. He's very handsome, I'm sure my photo doesn't do him justice. He's so nice too--he bought everybody water--at $5 a pop, these bottles aren't cheap. We asked him first before we put up his picture.

[Howlin]

He would have been MY first choice........LOL.

But if we're hunting gays, I say we "get" a few, too.

[conservative in nyc]

A lot of the allegations in Howard Kurtz' article are rehashed from the allegations made on Daily Koz and the other lefty websites. I saw the AOL picture while lurking on Koz's website last night after an early thread on this got pulled. It did bear a resemblance to Jeff Gannon.

They leftie part of blogosphere has been investigating Jeff Gannon for a few weeks, after his question at the President's news conference. They're trying to "prove" he's a Bush plant or somehow has ties to the "evil" Karl Rove by googling up a storm. The problem is they have no real proof -- just random bits of information gleaned from the Internet proving nothing.

That the Washington Post would pick this up isn't much of a surprise. In a way, it's good news. It shows that the mainstream media is losing its monopoly on controlling what is reported. In the old days, the New York Times would print something or Walter Cronkite would say something and other media outlets would follow, no questions asked. With Algore's invention of the Internet, the New York Times and CBS no longer have as much control over the media agenda as they used to. And the mainstream media lurks here and on Drudge too.

[A Citizen Reporter]

"at a reception for Julie Hiatt-Steele"

Good land, talk about a name from the past!

[Howlin]

[kcvl]

Hewitt notes that while it was left-of-center bloggers Atrios (Philadelphian Duncan Black) and Joshua Micah Marshall who got the anti-Lott swarm buzzing

Hewitt correctly laments that "the political left is seriously behind in the promotion and development of bloggers with insight and good humor." Typical of the lack is Markos Moulitsas, the fellow behind DailyKos. Kos, who described the American contractors brutally murdered in Baghdad last spring as "mercenaries,"

[unsycophant]

That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.

by kos on Thu Apr 1st, 2004 at 10:08:56 EST

Let's not forget that he later claimed he only said "screw them" cause he was just so damned overcome with emotion (= loss of ad revenue).

[Howlin]

Tell that to Trent Lott, who succumbed to the flames of a scandal that was fanned in large part by Atrios and a few other bloggers.

BS.

Tell that to Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard, who -- when he lamely tried to smear gay Episcopalian bishop Gene Robinson -- was outed by Signorile and Atrios as a board member of a conservative Episcopalian group.

Oh, I bet Fred is really scared!

[Mo1]

They leftie part of blogosphere has been investigating Jeff Gannon for a few weeks, after his question at the President's news conference. They're trying to "prove" he's a Bush plant or somehow has ties to the "evil" Karl Rove by googling up a storm. The problem is they have no real proof -- just random bits of information gleaned from the Internet proving nothing.

Yea ... I saw where they were now saying he's a CIA plant

I've said it before and I'll say it again .. the left are a bunch of Loons!

[Willie Green]

Gannon explained the pseudonym by saying that some people prefer to use more "commercially appealing" names.

Good grief. Why didn't he just say that when they first asked?
It would've avoided a lot of unnecessary speculation and suspicion.

[Howlin]

YOu think this is about his name? Geez.

[Mo1]

There might be a thread on FR about something Atrios put up on his website regarding the military .. though I'm not sure

I'm trying to remember all the details .. but I think it had to do with the deaths of our soldiers

Anyhow .. it caused such a fury that even DKos had to pull it from their site

Like I said .. Atrios as a history of being a Nasty bugger

The fact that Howie Kurtz is reporting on him as being creditable is sad

[kcvl]

Duncan Black, 32, an economics teacher from Philadelphia

Duncan Black, an economist now a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America.

[Mo1]

Duncan Black, an economist now a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America

He's working with David Brock now??