I read Hotline’s Blogometer most every day. I like it — it provides a good service. But I have to say, every once in a while I just get irked by the Blogometer’s insistence on labeling every blogger either a “righty” or a “lefty” and then often breaking the blogosphere down into only those two camps. It seems sometimes that too many assumptions are made about bloggers and their positions because they are a “righty” or “lefty.”

Case in point, today’s Blogometer in which the Patrick Hynes flap was the lead story:

Hynes’ righty blogger friends were quick to forgive. Ryan Sager at RCP Blog: “Hynes is handling this correctly. There’s basically no excuse for not disclosing the relationship earlier. And his past comments about similar scandals on the Left now look awfully hypocritical. But, unlike on the Left, it’s not all deny, deny, deny. He handled something in the wrong way, and now he’s saying so forthrightly.” Tim Chapman: “I think Hynes is handling the whole thing quite well.” Instapundit: “Hynes acted as go-between on our podcast interview with John McCain; I didn’t realize he was actually being paid by McCain’s PAC. Not sure it would have mattered, really, but I would have liked to know.”

Less affiliated bloggers pointed out a little hypocrisy in Hynes position. Wonkette’s David Weigel: “But Geraghty skips the best part of this - Hynes’ reaction to the 2005 news that Daily Kos blogger Markos Moulitsas had served as a consultant for Howard Dean while keeping up his blog.” Beltway Blogroll (go team!): “The controversy surrounding Hynes is even more interesting in light of some of the criticisms he has leveled against top bloggers on the left. He has been particularly critical of [Matt] Stoller. At The Channel Changer, a blog of his focused on competition in the communications industry, Hynes has called Stoller a “suspected paid Google/MoveOn shill” in the battle for “network neutrality.”

“Less affiliated bloggers?” As if Hynes, Glenn Reynolds, Ryan Sager and myself are inextricably bound on every issue because we are all part of the center-right blogosphere. Fact is, I have never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Sager and I have briefly met Reynolds and Hynes once — both of whom I was happy to meet. I suppose I am being nitpicky here, but it just irks me.

It isn’t like this isn’t a common occurance on the Blogometer. Almost every day Hotline’s Blogometer breaks down the blogosphere as “righty” vs. “lefty”…there is very little room for nuance or give and take. I also wonder if this approach — always righty vs. lefty — doesn’t contribute to the already coarse nature of some discourse between bloggers of different political persuasions.

The point is the labels that are so frequently and so freely thrown about more often than not serve to dilute the actual substance of the labeled blogger’s post. Essentially, incessantly labeling the blogger’s post as one or the other before then grabbing a quotable nugget from the post leaves the Blogometer’s readers feeling no need to follow the link and learn what else the quoted blogger had to say. After all, they already know all they need to know: said blogger is a “righty” and falls along predictable “righty” lines.

In the above example, if a Blogometer reader followed the link to read my entire post, they would have discovered that the one line in which I commended Hynes handling of the situation was almost an aside and was not by any means the meat of the post. The meat of the post was about how I was happy to see conservatives in the blogosphere policing their own…despite sharing roughly the same political philosophy.

Nevertheless, the Blogometer is a helpful publication that I will continue to read. I am just bugged by this issue. It seems too simplistic, too easy. Those guys over there are smart smart journalists, I have met some of them and have been thoroughly impressed. I think they could be a little better.

Then again, if I had to read as many posts as they do everyday and then break down all the different bloggers’ arguments I might be tempted to simplify things as well.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 3:15 pm and is filed under blogosphere. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.