[GulliverSwift]

The comment was from Keith Jenkins, an African-American blogger who is also an editor at The Washington Post Magazine [a sister publication of NEWSWEEK].
"It has taken 'mainstream media' a very long time to get to [the] point of inclusion," Jenkins wrote. "My fear is that the overwhelmingly white and male American blogosphere ... will return us to a day where the dialogue about issues was a predominantly white-only one."...

Fortunately the Washington Post doesn't have absolute control over what bloggers do, although they'd like to. This all just makes the MSM liberals uncomfortable. They are now trying to attack their rival for information.

But is there a way to promote diversity online, given the built-in decentralization of the blog world? Jenkins, whose comment started the discussion, says that any approach is fine—except inaction. "You can't wait for it to just happen,"

So what are you going to do, force them to do it? Lets have the MSM order bloggers around and tell them how they should implement affirmative action.

nd at the Harvard conference, Suitt challenged people to each find 10 bloggers who weren't male, white or English-speaking—and link to them.

Never mind if what they have to say is crap or don't agree with it. Mindless affirmative action dogma has no place in the blogosphere....yet.

[KC_Conspirator]

So this is a way to call bloggers rascist? Is the return of the "angry white male" of the 1990's?

Shame on Newsweak.

So, no one is forcing people to blog. I am sure there are different demographics for online trading, downloading music, etc.

[bigsigh]

Remember Al Gore's phone tax to get more computers to poor kids. Now we'll have a grant to encourage minorities and women to wrtie columns on the www. What's another nickel on the ol phone bill.

[Calusa]

Everytime the so called progressive get bested they go to race and sex baiting. How utterly predictable. Let'm try some new ideas for a change of pace.

[writer33]

With no diversity, blogs are doomed! Doomed I tell you!

:) Hehe!

[thoughtomator]

Actually, we're all dogs sitting behind keyboards.

[MisterRepublican]

I have no idea what the age, sex, race, etc. of certain bloggers are unless they tell me. Does Jenkins think only white males have internet access? Are blacks being prevented from blogging?

Typical, old school race-baiting liberalism.

[doodad]

Just damn ping.

[GOPJ]

Let me guess... We all have to run pictures of ourselves next to our comments so idiots like this know what color we are?

Gimme a break.

It's stupid and silly. On a blog , you're known by the quality of your ideas, not the color of your skin.

This is a level playing field if ever there was one.

[Mark in the Old South]

Re: "...concerned that if the voices of bloggers overwhelm those of traditional media, "we will throw out some of the best ... journalism of the 21st century." The comment was from Keith Jenkins, an African-American blogger who is also an editor at The Washington Post Magazine..."

Jason Blair comes screaming to mind just now, I have no idea why. :-}

[3AngelaD]

Unless bloggers identify themselves by race, how can you tell? How could you exclude or include individuals by race? I don't care what color people are, I'm looking for someone who has something interesting to say, unlike the Washington Post magazine that only rarely has anything I want to read beyond Gene Weingarden and Dilbert. The MSM are just beside themselves because they no longer control information, and therefore, political discourse. Tough noogies. And Newsweek, with all its posturing, pathetic attempts at sophistication, nasty-gossipy fluff and "with-it-ness" is a huge bore. What we are hearing is the cry of the dinosaurs as they become extinct.

[Ticonderoga34]

This absurd on some many levels. There are no gate keepers stopping anyone from blogging. That's the great thing about blogging. Of course, if you aren't any good at it, nobody is going to be interested in your blog but that's your fault.

You don't even have to own a computer to blog. Just go the public library and use one of their computers. Geez, we have to have affirmation action for blogs now? No, I don't think so.

[Steel Wolf]

Help me out here. My dogma o matic is on overload.

Racial discrimination is bad. Everyone should be equal.

www.blogger.com or other free sites give out a blog to anyone who subscribes. White. Black. Chinese grandmother. Turkish stripper. Transgendred Inuit.

There is NO way of telling who is writing that blog.

So, how are the evil forces of discrimination going to bias against other-than-white, non-to-semi-male bloggers? HOW?

It's a level playing field. The best writer wins.

What, exactly, do the enlightened on the left dislike about so egalitarian a concept?

[Al Gator]

Just another lonely, black racist, calling in the night....

[crazyhorse691]

My fear is.........
My fear is.........
My fear is.........
My fear is.........
My fear is.........
My fear is.........

---

It's always about feelings for the liberals. Perish the thought that thinking and facts and logic and integrity might be positive attributes. Instead, yell racism on the Internet. Idiots.

[George Smiley]

I don't know what the race of a given blogger is unless they put a picture up or otherwise self-describe.

After all, it was a cartoon in The New Yorker that put it best: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

[dirtboy]

"My fear is that the overwhelmingly white and male American blogosphere ... will return us to a day where the dialogue about issues was a predominantly white-only one."...

What a pathetic joke. If you have internet access, you can blog. It's far more democratic than newspapers, where, as Mark Twain once noted, freedom of the press is limited to whoever owns one.

[Ben Hecks]

Apparently, Mr. Jenkins is not familiar with La Shawn Barber's blog:

http://lashawnbarber.com/index.php

[colorado tanker]

Lessee, the anti-freedom crowd failed to persuade us to regulate the Internet to tax it, so their new angle is we have to regulate the Internet to fight racism and promote diversity??? Like the energizer bunny, liberals just never quit trying to tax and regulate anything that moves, and lots that doesn't.

[NorthGA]

He should have also added those "wearing pajamas in the living room" to the list of offenders.

[sergeantdave]

If the blog is interesting, people will read it. If it's boring, people won't.

It's called the free market of ideas. If your ideas can't compete on the blogs, buy a billboard and whine.