JournoList vs. GetReligion

March 22, 2009 By TMatt

046500176901lzzzzzzz All week, I had people asking what I thought about THAT story, you know, the Politico piece about the top-secret online congregation of liberal journalists that has been helping keep the left on message for the past two years.

You mean, you haven’t been reading about “JournoList: Inside the echo chamber” all week? By all means, here’s the top of the story from Michael Calderone:

For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList.

Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy? Not at all, says Ezra Klein, the 24-year-old American Prospect blogging wunderkind who formed JournoList in February 2007. “Basically,” he says, “it’s just a list where journalists and policy wonks can discuss issues freely.” …

Last April, criticism of ABC’s handling of a Democratic presidential debate took shape on JList before morphing into an open letter to the network, signed by more than 40 journalists and academics — many of whom are JList members. But beyond these specific examples, it’s hard to trace JList’s influence in the media, because so few JListers are willing to talk on the record about it.

POLITICO contacted nearly three dozen current JList members for this story. The majority either declined to comment or didn’t respond to interview requests — and then returned to JList to post items on why they wouldn’t be talking to POLITICO about what goes on there.

Now there are many things that could be said. As far as I’m concerned, it reallly doesn’t matter that a bunch of folks on the partisan left get together in this fashion to talk shop. The only interesting angle, of course, is whether there are mainstream journalists secretly taking part, which would mean that they are helping to shape the talking points and events that they would then be covering for their own newsrooms. That would be bad.

This does raise a related question: If a journalist from, say, The New Republic was a member of this advocacy list, should she or he disclose this when covering a political event or even a piece of legislation that could be traced back to JournoList work? Do scribes at openly partisan publications get to be, well, covertly partisan?

Another question: Does “liberal” automatically mean “Democrat”? Do these liberals conspire against conservative Democrats? Are there culturally liberal Republicans in the JournoList, helping coordinate work on causes that they share in common — same-sex marriage, perhaps — with liberal Democrats?

So what does this have to do with GetReligion?

Several years ago, I was invited to a Washington Times luncheon for bloggers inside the Beltway. I’m interested in all things digital and newsy, so I was happy to take part. This was not a secret meeting, by the way, because the Times actually posted the transcript. I cannot find the link, which may mean the post was lost in the creation of the newspaper’s new website.

I hope the link is still out there, because the moderator asked an interesting question: How do you know that it’s been a “good day” at your weblog? That’s kind of like asking, “What is the true purpose of your blog”?

When it came my turn, I said that a really good day at GetReligion.org was when we published a post that led to a correction in the New York Times.

That’s right, a correction in the Times. Like this one.

liberal-bias It was an honest answer and it drew a good laugh. The bloggers laughed at me and at GetReligion. You see, everyone else at the table, other than a Times editor or two, considered themselves, first and foremost, GOP activists. A good day at their blogs was when they did something that helped the GOP. So they laughed at GetReligion and our journalistic goals.

My response? I told them that there seemed to have been a misunderstanding. I thought I have been invited to a lunch to discuss blogging and online media. Clearly, there weren’t many ordinary journalists — let alone conservative Democrats — in the room. Two strikes against me.

So, in a way, you now know my take on the JournoList firestorm. What, precisely, is the purpose of that list? Is it a cyber-room for journalists or Democrats? Is it’s purpose in any way journalistic, or is it nakedly partisan and political?

One more thing. Last year, when we both lectured at Princeton University, Jeff Sharlet of The Revealer told me that the secret to GetReligion was that we have really interesting liberal readers. Amen. Quite a few are still hanging around and more power to them (when they try to stick to journalism issues).

The liberals who read this here blog and comment have to put up with the fact that this is a journalism blog, yet one featuring a small pack of journalists who are basically religious and/or cultural conservatives of one kind or another. We don’t hide our worldviews, around here, but our core goals are journalistic. And our goals are right out there in the open for all to see.

Here’s hoping that the JournoList folks open up and clear the air. Who are they? What do they want?

How do the JournoList people know when it’s been a good day on the JournoList?

Filed Under: Announcements, Evangelicals, First Person, Journalism, Politics, Web/Tech

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About TMatt

Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He writes a weekly column for the Scripps Howard News Service.

Chris Bolinger

it reallly [sic] doesn’t matter that a bunch of folks on the partisan left get together in this fashion to talk shop. The only interesting angle, of course, is whether there are mainstream journalists secretly taking part…

Terry, can you produce evidence that no mainstream journalists are on the partisan left? 90% of them consistently vote for candidates on the left, but none of them participates in the political process, right? And they never discuss their political views when they talk shop, right? And their political views never influence their writing in their “mainstream” publications, right?

What is your definition of “mainstream”?
Tim J.

As one of those young conservatives who already held the MSM in low regard, this is the sort of story which touches on all my darkest suspicions. Actually, it seemed so much like something out of a conspiracy theory that I initially doubted its veracity; now I’m wondering if I’m just not paranoid enough. The whole thing smacks of message control, which is not the sort of thing journalists should be participating in. That’s what party shills do.

The only proper way to undo the damage is public disclosure of the archives. And of course that would only work if what goes on there really is far more innocuous than I and many others suspect.

I don’t think it’ll happen. I know this seems a bit cynical, but it’s only cynical if I turn out to be wrong.

It’ll be interesting to see journalists explain to us why the public doesn’t have a right know when they’re the subject.
http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

Basic, American model of the press newspapers and wire services.

In other words, not openly partisan newsrooms — like Weekly Standard, New Republic, Rolling Stone, World, Newsweek, that kind of stuff.
Mary

I’m not a journalist, I’m a former democrat, now re-affiliated as an independent. I grew up considering myself a “leftist” democrat, then after the 2000 election exposed me to the reality behind the left, I redefined myself as a liberal democrat.. that’s probably what I truly was all my life. I believe I stand for classic liberal values. I’ve come to recognize the two political extremes, left and right as old world constructs. Neither are liberal or conservative, and both are essentially seeking the same outcome, a despotic, totalitarian form of governance. It’s the reason both are allied together at present. And, btw, yes, they are attacking moderate democrats, that’s no secret, well at least it’s not on left wing blogs and forums. That sort of talk started late in ’07, I remember rolling my eyes heavenward when Ed Kilgore, formerly of the DLC, was committing definitely to an effort to force moderates and bluedogs out of congress, but it had to wait until the election was over. So, be in no doubt, they are surely interested in doing just that.

As to the MSM, I believe most people consider network and cable news outlets and most if not all print media, the mainstream. I don’t place much faith in the so called “alternative” media, it’s not really much of an alternative. Much of the blogosphere, including the blogs by the those on the left who claimed to care about civil rights and social justice, is a farce. It represents an above the glass ceiling mindset, and is essentially useless. I might still have a degree of respect for Josh Marshall, but he’s become so disconnected, that he offers nothing of any significance. I’m still on the mailing list of many so called alt media types, and more than a few are trying to position themselves for slots on one network or another. David Sirota is angling for the 10 pm time slot on MSNBC, which made me laugh.

I read about JList last week, and actually tried to find it, to no avail, unfortunately. I believe they should be exposed. My opinion is that Ezra’s intent was to create a forum where he and others like him could herd coverage to suit their agenda, one way or another. I’ll lay odds that JList has a lot more of the MSM types, than one might assume. Joe Klein is a member, and the articles I read hinted at others. It’s definitely partisan political, with the intent to promote what is advantageous for the far left, and to squelch any independent, free thinking. It’s bound to be rife with gossip, and vendettas. I don’t believe that I’m exaggerating when I speculate that Ezra hopes that many in the MSM who might be lured in, are insecure about their own continued employment, and he hopes to take advantage of that, in one way or another.

I view the entire JList thing as dangerous. We haven’t had a truly free press in a long time, and now this is a sign of the far left contributing to further game the system.
http://www.southernconnections.com/roller George Frink

Woe is me! tmatt and I agree (I think). There still isn’t enough fuel out there to start my conclusion-jumping-to machine. I want to know what really floats their collective boat before I look for a hammer to knock a hole in the bottom of it.
Jerry

I would bet that a similar organization or two has existed for years on the right but has sailed underneath the radar. Google comes up with 207,000 hits on conservative journalism society. I don’t have the requisite number of hours needed to see if there’s an equivalent group on the right, but there might be. The story even admitted as much but claimed it was not as bad as the group under investigation but presented no proof that the right is not as bad as the left.

But even if there is not, there’s quite a bit of leaping to contusions in that hit piece from Politico that sketches out a liberal conspiracy. Why aren’t they investigating the conservative conspiracy equally strongly?

Yes, I’m deliberately casting aspersions and making wild, unprovable statements, but this apparent tempest in a tea pot is almost that bad in my judgment.

The whole thing strikes me as deliberate fear mongering by people with ulterior motives at least from what’s been presented.

by the way, that link to the story is broken – it looks like this: http://www.getreligion.org/www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20086.html
Stoo

I’m curious as to what Mary means by “far” left – to me it’s always seemed like america has no real organised far left.
FW Ken

One of the things I watch for as a journalism consumer (a hateful phrase, but useful at the moment) is the substitution of “secret” for “private”. I recognize that journalism, by definition, involves bringing things into the public realm, but the public realm isn’t an absolute. Sometimes, people need to communicate away from the TV cameras and journalist’s notebooks. I recognize the problem: when does free association become a “vast conspiracy”?

I agree with Jerry: there are probably been a variety of discrete groups of right leaning journalists talking about right-leanings issues for years. They just didn’t give their groups trendy high-tech names that attracted attention. The left really should get over it’s tendency toward terminal hipness.
Harris

To further expand on Ken’s distinction between private and “secret”, would it make a difference, say if the same individuals socialized? Must a journalist then list all the people she or he talks to socially? And in an era where group blogs increasingly take the social place of older print opinion journalism, can we really be surprised that participants and readers do not also cross-communicate (and so cross-pollinate)?

What makes the field a profession is the ability of its members to maintain collegial relations and yet keep their’ own judgment. Absent the demonstration of that collective judgment in substance — and certainly with the use of a term like “secret” — such a concern about such private correspondence does seem to partake of the very partisanship it decries.
Martha

Is it an advocacy group, or just a bunch of like-minded people all working in the same industry getting together?

I would say that there is no need for a top-secret cabal of liberal infiltrators, because the general mindset already is ‘reality-biased’ like the T-shirt

After all, there have been comments left on here accusing GetReligion of having an agenda; of being part of the Vast Right-Wing Christianist Conspiracy to impose their views on everyone and usher in the Republican Theocracy.

Flattered as I am to be included in this, I already am a member of one Global Conservative Religious Conspiracy and really don’t have the time to help out
Dave Vander Laan

The correct link for the story in reference is here:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20086.html
http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

Dave:

Thanks!

I had the right link, but it was broken somehow. The http got left out.

Jerry:

Read my post again. There are networks on the right, but I raised a question there: Do they include mainstream journalists, or only movement bloggers?

Surely you are not implying that, in terms of either (a) party affiliation or (b) views on moral and cultural issues, there are vast numbers of right wingers in mainstream newsrooms?

I you are suggesting an investigation of traditional religious believers in newsrooms, trust me, they don’t line up according to neat political terms and loyalties.
Mary

Stoo, oh, there’s definitely an organized far left in the US. True, it was smoldering away quietly for decades, but it’s been increasingly less so since the late ’90s, and has been propelled into power by subsidies by Soros, some very influential non profits and wealthy democrats throughout the ’00s, who have been courted and brought in. When I say far left, I am referring to the extremists on the left, which includes it’s power structure. It’s not my intention to infer that the rest of the left are not extremist, rather, that the rest are merely useful tools, or drones as some in the hierarchy refer to them.

How many of you know that since the ’04 election, democrat candidates campaigns, starting with the presidential candidates, down through major congressional candidates, even to some gubenatorial candidates campaign staffs have been weighted with people trained by Zack Exley, through his “roots” and other “camps”? In 2000, I started hearing and reading more about him, and did some research on him. Back in 1993-94 he was organizing a movement to take down the democratic party, even posting to recruit via usenet. He was doing some pretty basic stuff, involvement with union organizing, and then moved on, looking for contacts with investors. He hooked up with Soros, after establishing other contacts, then went to work for moveon.org. Where he got started shaping his netroots movement. Getting back on track, he was a high up in Dean’s campaign, a candidate selected purely because he’d signed one piece of legislation as governor of Vermont, that appealed to “progressives”, despite the fact that he was a lousy governor with a shameful record Exley brought with him a bunch of his roots camp trainees. After Dean dropped out, Exley and his trainees went to work for Kerry’s campaign, and other trainees went to work for Edward’s campaign. They weren’t supportive of either campaign, they were there to establish themselves, and to deliberately disrupt and manipulate the directions of both campaigns. Anyone involved in either of those campaigns, with contacts to the national headquarters knows that something went wrong at that point. In Edward’s last campaign, Exley’s minions were involved at all levels, and effectively were chasing supporters away from the campaign, attacking them, and openly discrediting the issues Edwards ran on. They selected the two female bloggers, one from Pandagon, and the other from a blog whose name I can’t remember, who were hostile to Christians and their beliefs. There are people who believe that the intent was to work against these candidates, help Bush remain in power in ’04, and in ’08 to steer support to Obama. I can’t claim to know what the intent was, but I can say that the introduction of Exley and his minions brought about a negative change in how campaigns were run.. and you see the same attitudes and strategies at play in the leftist media. BTW, if any of you have conservative friends, please suggest to them that they be wary of the entire John Galt-ist movement thing. It’s an attempt by far right wingers to negatively influence conservatives, and it’s just one more example of the far right and far left’s alliance to destroy our rights and freedoms, by creating divisions and promote bad policy.

JList isn’t a social, collegial or mere networking forum. It’s about expanding influence, trying to push, and discourage reporting, depending on what is and isn’t advantageous, as well as getting the sort of insider gossip and info that can come out, in one way or another in such a group. It might present itself as a network of sorts, hoping that it will appear as attractive to more in the MSM, because of the perceived switching of alliances of the media, from the right to the left.

I feel pretty confident in what I’ve stated as I’ve been reading and interacting with many of these writers now, for nearly a decade. They are now not afraid of letting their hypocrisies and
Stoo

I still want to know where you’re drawing the “far” line. Are we talking actual communists here?
Julia Duin

=No one should suggest it’s OK for Journolist to exist becaue of course there must be a conservative equivalent somewhere. There’s not. There were, however, 2 Christian journalist organizations dedicated to helping evangelicals attain positions in the MSM and/or supporting those who were already in the business. But once the Jack Kelley (himself an evangelical) scandal hit USA Today in 2004 (I think it was), certain liberal blogs savagely went after any Christian they could find in the MSM. One contact in NPR was harassed so badly, she told me she was thinking of quitting. Another contact at the WPost got reamed by his supervisors over his involvement and forced to drop a speaking engagement he had for 1 of the Christian groups. And yet another contact at Newhouse News Service …well, I could go on.
So, I am waiting for the day when newsroom editors tell their employees that belonging to Journolist is a firing offense. Or is it only folks on the right who get threatened?
Mary

Stoo, I believe that anyone who actively espouses and promotes Marxist doctrine, seeking to impose it, is a communist, so not to mince words here, I’d say yeah, in my not so humble opinion, while they call themselves, “progressive” or what have you, they are communists.
Dave

Marxism is so old hat. Look at Russia and China. The extreme leftist formula today is state ownership of the means of communication.
http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

I think it’s a brilliant idea to set up a list-serv that brings together the liberal commentariat on the hot-button issues of the day. I wish libertarians were capable of such a feat.

What concerns me is whether mainstream journalists should do anything other than report on such a list-serv. To build community in such a one-sided fashion is really not becoming of people who pride themselves on transparency and balance.
Martha

“They selected the two female bloggers, one from Pandagon, and the other from a blog whose name I can’t remember, who were hostile to Christians and their beliefs.”

And how wonderfully that worked out for them
Joe

Despite the best efforts of Mollie’s husband at NRO, is there any evidence that mainstream reporters actually participated on the list? If not, this is just a cyber-version of the Arlington Group or any of the weekly lunches of conservative witers and GOP operatives.
dalea

Somehow in discussing this list it might be usefull to define just what is meant by ‘liberal’ and ‘left’, or at least to have some sort of example of same. From the quote, it seems that ‘bloggers’ are involved but the naming of them is rather inconsistent. From those named, it is rather clear that the major Progressive blogs are involved. These would be DKos, FireDogLake, TalkingPointsMemo, HuffingtonPost, BoomanTribune, MyDD and TalkLeft. Add in journalists, I think, Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow. Note on the journalism: these groups call themselves ‘Progressive’ not ‘Liberal’ or ‘Left’.

Personal fact: I am a trusted reader at DKos. All the people named fall into the category of Obama supporters in the primaries, frequently called Obamabots. The comparable Hillary supporters would be blogs like Confluence, Alegre’s Corner, ReclusiveLeftist, Anglachel’sJournal and SugarAndSpice, which prefer to be called ‘Liberal’, Then there are actual Leftist blogs like CounterPunch.

The existance of this group, or its forerunner, was known to Hillary’s supporters over a year ago. It was commonly refered to as ‘FratBoyTactics’, which might explain the secracy. Wave after wave of attacks directed at Hillary would arise in a coordinated fashion during the primaries, which is why it was known.

The range of opinions and positions among the participants is very wide. The New Republic is always a target for DKos. And Politico is a constant target of ridicule. Which it probably deserves as it does not make the obvious connection to the Obama movement.
http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

Joe,

The list membership is a strictly kept secret. Politico named a few folks on the list (And . . . there’s the problem.) but couldn’t get anyone to talk:

“POLITICO contacted nearly three dozen current JList members for this story. The majority either declined to comment or didn’t respond to interview requests — and then returned to JList to post items on why they wouldn’t be talking to POLITICO about what goes on there.”

and

“One byproduct of that secrecy: For all its high-profile membership — which includes Nobel Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman; staffers from Newsweek, POLITICO, Huffington Post, The New Republic, The Nation and The New Yorker; policy wonks, academics and bloggers such as Klein and Matthew Yglesias — JList itself has received almost no attention from the media.”

You’ve got Joe Klein and Jeffrey Toobin on the list, but other than that, I don’t think there’s been any confirmation.

Incidentally, one of the things that bothers me so much about the revelation of this list is that I was sure it was conservative paranoia when I first heard about it. I told folks that there was no way such a list could exist in private with mainstream media folks on it.

I hate it when I’m wrong. And when my husband is right.
Joe

Joe Klein and Jeffrey Toobin are columnists and analysts, not mainstream reporters. They are more like you and Terry.
Deacon John M. Bresnahan

Whether right or left, liberal or conservative–shouldn’t we all be worried about groups or individuals of any type which are in a position to be very influential in our political process (and media coverage of same) but seem to be fanatically determined to be as secretive and “underground” as possible. One can only assume that there is some sort of ulterior motive behind the secretiveness. Like hiding the influence of people such as George Soros over the political process. Noone seems to remember how Dem candidates in the last election almost all obeyed orders and bailed out of a debate that was going to be on Fox News (which does not try to hide it is owned by conservative Rupert Murdoch) at the demand of Move On. org (which few people know was –and probably still is– a pet project of radical leftist George Soros).
And this has a lot to do with religion because the extreme left-like in France of the Revolution and Russia of the Revolution, etc. seems to have a particular hatred of many traditional judeo-christian doctrinal and moral stances as well as contempt for the religious believers who support those doctrinal and moral traditions. (Has anyone been treated more viciously, more rottenly, more virulently, more disparagingly, with more lies, falsehoods, and negative spin than Sarah Palin –mostly over her purported religious heritage. And most of the worst inanities seem to have originated from secretive “hit” journalists which one can only wonder what payroll they were on or what cabal they were poltting with.
Dave

Gee, whatever happened to “freedom of association,” so dealy beloved on the right in the days of the White Citizens’ Councils?
MJBubba

I suspect that the very few social conservatives with jobs in the mainstream media can keep in close touch with each other via regular e-mail and phone calls, with no need for a listserve. They could all easily sit at one table together if they could arrange to meet.
I don’t mind leftist media types keeping touch with a listserve, but, if they are including Democratic Party spin doctors and major donors, and also their counterparts from the progressive think tanks, that ought to be a matter for disclosure.
http://www.zarephathwines.com Frank Hamsher

As an expatriate American with a lifelong interest in the spiritual and religious, I came across your web-site in the very early days of the 2008 primary season.

I suppose you would class me as a liberal, although I usually avoid such labels as life is much more complicated then any label will ever adequately express!

I have continued to read your blog regularly as I find that there is much thoughtfully provided information imparted on the spectrum of faith — that to me is more important than the day to day ups and downs of the journalistic fashion.

I applaud the integrity that your website reflects on a consistent ongoing basis and will continue to be a regular reader.
http://suburbanbanshee.wordpress.com Maureen

I still don’t understand why you think people were laughing _at_ your answer. I think they were pretty definitely laughing _with_ you, since the NY Times needs to issue corrections on a lot of stuff and often doesn’t.

It’s like a weatherman assuming people are laughing at him when he says a good day is when he gets the weather right. No; we all have that problem, and we all have guessed wrong, so we all would laugh with you.
http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

Oh, their comments made it clear that they thought the purpose of my blog was funny and frivolous.

Like I said, I wish the transcript was still online.
http://suburbanbanshee.wordpress.com Maureen

Funny in a bailing out the sea way, maybe. Frivolous? Surely not. (Unless you were dealing with the libertarian wing of the GOP, maybe?)

Shrug. I wasn’t there. But then again, I’ve had to parse out Rush Limbaugh jokes for people before, line by line and reference by reference, because they just hadn’t listened to his show long enough. (I haven’t listened to him in years, but it’s still a lot easier for me to understand him than for the vast majority of non-listeners.) I’ve had to do the same thing for non-anime fans, non-Star Trek fans, non-Jane Austen fans, etc.

I myself was surprised to discover that Tullamore Dew, the subject of song and story in science fiction fandom, was not an imaginary drink but a real Irish whiskey. Back in the day, it had been cheap and easy to get. When I joined fandom, it was unobtainium for quite a while. Later it reappeared in US distribution, but not before I had exposed my ignorance. (And gotten a drink of single-malt out of it, which isn’t a bad trade.)

If there’s not a big enough pool of common knowledge and references, there can be a vast amount of misunderstanding.
http://suburbanbanshee.wordpress.com Maureen

I’ll shut up after this, I promise.

In a lot of geek cultures, there are certain values and goals which are clearly understood by all members as being supremely to be wished for, but probably not practical at this time. If someone makes a proposal to directly win one of these goals, and it doesn’t sound practicable, people just nod and get away as fast as possible.

If the plan does seem practicable, the impressed geeks assume that you know they are impressed, and begin making deprecatory jokes to maintain their cool in the face of your supreme cool. The truly envious make mean jokes, but it is mostly assumed that you will ignore them loftily.

One saw this, for example, at talks by space activists at sf conventions and elsewhere. As private space programs became not something for cranks or even a blue sky thing, but more clearly something that was going to happen, the jokes by audience members became more deprecatory in tone but were received as being more appreciative. It happens with TV sf presentations, as well. There’s no point bothering making jokes about something that nobody will ever notice or care about.

So I suspect that people thought your factchecking was perhaps quixotic but definitely cool, and some were probably sorry they hadn’t thought of it first. Militant atheists or newspeople-haters may have hated it, but yeah, any real serious pretending you were frivolous was probably people really, really kicking themselves over not doing it first or convinced that you’d stolen their idea.
Mary

Something’s leaked from Journolist, a snitfest over Marty Peretz of TNR and snippets have been posted to Kausfiles column on Slate: http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/archive/2009/03/26/journolist-revealed-inside-the-liberal-media-email-cabal.aspx
Mary

BTW, journolist is on google groups, if anyone wants to atttempt to join it, you can use this link http://groups.google.com/group/journolist/

It’s kept private, but there’s a link to register w/google and request membership and to contact the list owner.
Mary

This is a rather late response to Martha, but didn’t notice it when I came back to post about the content from Journolist being put out on Kaus’s blog.

Martha, those two female bloggers weren’t selected by Exley’s plants in the Edwards campaign to help Edwards, but to work to derail it. To chase away the religious, to chase away moderate democrats, and push them to Obama’s candidacy, it’s something called sabotage. Exley’s plants in Edwards campaign harassed moderate dems, they disparaged issues like poverty, outsourcing of jobs, the military and veterans, at times on the blog on the site, but mostly through a chat room feature that was included on the site. If you entered that chat room, Edwards supporters were attacked and shocked to find a clutch of spoiled elites talking about what mattered most them, and insulting average Americans. It was insidious, and there was no way to report these activities, because you had to go through the people who were behind it. Veterans and their families were banned from the site, merely for defending themselves.

People who had been involved in Edwards ’04 campaign were chased away as well. Many have spoken about feeling foolish for initially embracing Howard Dean’s former campaigners after Dean dropped out in ’04, and allowing them to get involved in the official campaign. Those far leftists, including Exley’s minions attached themselves as parasites, not to support Edwards’ campaign, but to weaken and undermine it, to help destroy it from within to help elevate Obama. You might not like Edwards, but we’re all the worse for Obama being in the whitehouse, he’s working only for one thing, to destroy our country and subjugate us to fascistic rule under the corporate and foreign elites.
http://www.ecben.net Will

I would bet that a similar organization or two has existed for years on the right but has sailed underneath the radar. Google comes up with 207,000 hits on conservative journalism society.

Jerry, I do not mean to pick on you personally, but I am getting annoyed by seeing the argumentum ad googlem applied by people who do not understand boolean searching. What you asked for is all entries which contain all three of the words “journalism”, “society” and “conservative”; and it is doubtful that this proves anything about the subject under discussion.

Now, when you put it in inverted commas, which searches for the actual phrase “conservative journalism society”, the “27,000 hit” melt to … zero.
Mary

oops, my mistake I meant to say those two bloggers WERE selected by Exley’s plants in the Edwards’ campaign. That’s what happens when you’re typing something, while trying to do something else..