Free Republic

Last September, when bloggers deconstructed Dan Rather and Company over the bogus documents they used to question George W. Bush's National Guard service, one CNN executive said that a typical blogger is "a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas." He dismissed the blog phenomenon as having "no checks and balances." Now, with a dose of irony pointed CNN's way, three much-visited blogs (web logs) are banding together to form a global news network and to sell advertising. It's name? Pajamas Media. The three blogs -- ArmedLiberal.com, RogerLSimon.com and LittleGreenFootballs.com -- are putting together a network of more...

The world of Catholic bloggers is a window into contemporary and orthodox Catholic thought that takes Pope John Paul II’s call for a new evangelization and turns it into a worldwide discussion of faith, morals, politics, and plain old daily life. One blogger said he and his friends were delighted to discover they were part of a wider range of orthodox Catholics interested in evangelizing the world, that they were "Catholic nerds!" The movement is perhaps best summed up in the mission statement of CyberCatholics.com, the sponsor of The 2005 Catholic Blog Awards. Founded by Joshua LeBlanc and Chris Decker,...

DON'T ask Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media and its growing list of popular Web logs, about his empire. "People come up to me as if it's witty and say, 'How is the empire going?' " Mr. Denton said, "which is pretty pathetic." Daniel Nardicio John d'Addario, the editor of Fleshbot. Don't ask him about his business plan, either. He says he never had one. The only reason he formed the company, he said, was to make his network of blogs - which includes Gawker , the flagship chronicle of Manhattan news and gossip; Fleshbot , the thinking person's diary...

DON'T ask Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media and its growing list of popular Web logs, about his empire. "People come up to me as if it's witty and say, 'How is the empire going?' " Mr. Denton said, "which is pretty pathetic." Don't ask him about his business plan, either. He says he never had one. The only reason he formed the company, he said, was to make his network of blogs - which includes Gawker, the flagship chronicle of Manhattan news and gossip; Fleshbot, the thinking person's diary of smut; and about 10 other titles - more attractive...

He's the Beckham of Bloggers. Amidst the vast realms and recesses of the Millions Strong Blogosphere crisscrossing the Great Planet, very few Bloggers are Identified - Widely Known by One Name. Omar from Iraq The Model is the exception. Omar! Omar! Omar! Omar Fadhil is an Iraqi Blogging Superstar, Dentist, Ardent Supporter of Freedom and Democracy in Iraq, and co-developer of a tool that allows millions of voices that were previously excluded from the Internet to finally be heard. And in: The In T View: Iraq The Model's Omar - Blogging's Modest Superstar, we explore Omar's thoughts on Iraq, Islam,...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Bloggers - those Internet-based writers without rules - are fighting back against criticism that their work is unreliable, libelous or just poorly done. More than 300 bloggers came to town Friday for a two-day conference that was heavy on teaching techniques used by journalists in what bloggers term "the mainstream media." One class taught students how to access and analyze government statistics. Conference organizer Bill Hobbs called blogging "citizen journalism." "If freedom of the press belongs to those who have the press, then blogging expands ownership of the press," Hobbs said. Right now, more than 8...

Washington, DC, May. 4 (UPI) -- More people are blogging than ever -- particularly young people -- while traditional media grapple with dwindling interest and growing criticism from this tech-savvy share of the public, experts told United Press International. "What blogging has created is a million eyes watching over the shoulders of journalists," Matthew Felling, media director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, told UPI. He cited the recent scourging of CBS Nightly News anchor Dan Rather, after bloggers showed a document Rather used to question President Bush's military service was a forgery.

Some smart "netrepreneur" should get to work on a parody song titled "Bloggers Killed the Newspaper Star." The original MTV generation will get the reference to days gone by when the network ran these strange things called "music videos." The first video MTV ran was "Video Killed the Radio Star." If you haven't noticed, that didn't quite pan out. Radio surely has its problems, but it's still around. Meanwhile, MTV is now basically a "lifestyle" network, running programming remarkably similar to that of PBS, A&E and other "adult" — in the non-porn sense — networks. Sure, MTV packages its wares...

If there was any doubt that my fellow Democrats with white skin, the notorious white liberal, is the most intolerant creature on the planet, all you have to do is check one of their most popular daily blogs, the Daily Kos, to see how they operate. After I posted the column below, Daily Kos ACTUALLY SHUT DOWN the site and banned me from posting there. Keep in mind, I didn't use profanity. All I did was disagree with their opinion on Air America Radio. Also keep in mind that Daily Kos himself called for a boycott of Time Magazine after...

I checked out the reaction over at AmericaBlog, one of the lefty sites that touted Jeff Gannon as The Biggest Story Ever. Some highlights: Boy, It does sound like they are going to be installing "showers" and "ovens" at the Vatican. I see people talking about the Rat Pope's homophobia, misogyny (did his doctoral thesis on St. Augustine!), intolerance, rigid hard-line attitudes, his almost blatant electioneering from the Vatican for Bush, his condemnation of other faiths and on and on and on and on. Well, now it is time to turn attention to the Biblical admonitions against unclean menstruating women...

The growing tide of personal attacks by bloggers and e-mailers "can make you really paranoid," says New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney. ABC's Linda Douglass says she has "learned that I have not just critics but people who seem to hate me that I don't even know about." "It's very nasty and personal and scatological," says Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank

The sergeant stationed just west of Baghdad was once again recounting the dangers of being on the front line - sometimes with dark humor. He referred to how the "muj" (mujahideen or insurgents) were the gang that couldn't shoot straight, but still represented a considerable threat. "They're horrible shots," he wrote in an e-mail to his family, "but every once in awhile they get lucky. We lost another Marine the other day." This is the first war in which American GIs and military families can communicate freely and in real time via e-mail and cellphone, while gathering endless amounts of...

For Every Story, An Online Epilogue Via E-Mail and Blog, Anyone's a Critic By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, April 18, 2005; Page C01 The growing tide of personal attacks by bloggers and e-mailers "can make you really paranoid," says New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney. ABC's Linda Douglass says she has "learned that I have not just critics but people who seem to hate me that I don't even know about." "It's very nasty and personal and scatological," says Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank. The rise of the blogosphere remains one of the most exciting communications developments...

Today in the House of Representatives, Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) introduced a companion piece of legislation to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's bill (S.678) to exclude the Internet from the definition of "public communication" in the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002. This is a bill that deserves bipartisan support, and it's exciting to see it off to a good start. In short - if this bill passes both houses and becomes law in the next 50 or-so days, the disastrous FEC rulemaking process will be rendered moot. Remember, the FEC is only creating regulations for Internet activity because...

Canada's long-standing practice of barring news organizations from disclosing what's happening in certain court proceedings is being tested by Internet bloggers. A Canadian commission that's investigating charges of high-level wrongdoing in the nation's Liberal Party has ordered news organizations not to reveal details from the proceedings, which are open to the public. But Ed Morrissey, a conservative Web logger in Minneapolis, has been gleefully violating the ban by posting detailed reports of the verboten "Adscam" testimony. Public revelation of Adscam, which involves allegations of corruption and illegal campaign contributions, could end the Liberal Party's precarious grasp on power and force...

<p>Jeff Gannon, the former White House reporter for Talon News, a conservative online news outlet, has once again roiled the Washington journalism establishment. Gannon, whose actual name is James Dale Guckert, resigned two months ago after gaining notoriety for using a fake name while working as a reporter covering the White House. Though he had no journalism experience and previously worked as an escort, he managed to ask President Bush a question at a nationally televised news conference.</p>

Just when you thought the Federal Election Commission had it out for the blogosphere, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors took it up a notch and announced yesterday that it will soon vote on a city ordinance that would require local bloggers to register with the city Ethics Commission and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate. Blogs that mention candidates for local office that receive more than 500 hits will be forced to pay a registration fee and will be subject to website traffic audits, according to Chad Jacobs, a San Francisco City Attorney. The entire...

In a move unlikely only because it's taken this long to happen, pundit-about-town Arianna Huffington is extending her hosting largess to the blogosphere. This month the wannabe California governor is launching a Slate-like Web site where a cast of bigwigs, including Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), David Geffen, Barry Diller, Larry David, Tom Freston, Ari Emanuel, Jim Wiatt Tina Brown and Harold Evans will each have their own blog from which to spout Big Thoughts about politics. Huffington wouldn't comment, but it was confirmed that a soft-launch of the Huffington Report would be up and running before the end of April....

Banned sponsorship testimony on U.S. weblogs Jean Brault in 2004 CTV.ca News Staff Updated: Sun. Apr. 3 2005 10:18 PM ET Some of the so-called explosive testimony from the Gomery Inquiry that Canadians aren't supposed to see has found its way onto U.S. political weblogs. On a U.S. weblog, the anonymous author said this about his source: "For obvious reasons, I cannot reveal this person's name or position, but this person is in a position to have the information. Bear in mind that this comes from a single source, so while I have confidence in the information, you should consider...

In yesterday's (March 27) Los Angeles Times, media reporter and critic David Shaw demonstrates Oscar Wilde's maxim that modern journalism is important—if only because it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. Giving every indication that he's read a lot of stories about bloggers but not that many actual blogs, Shaw disparages the form as the error-filled rants of amateurs in his piece, "Do Bloggers Deserve Basic Journalistic Protections?" It's a "solipsistic, self-aggrandizing journalist-wannabe genre," Shaw writes. Without naming a specific offender—except Matt Drudge, who he acknowledges really isn't a blogger—Shaw generalizes about bloggers for 1,300 gassy...