Blogging the blogger

Slate writer and self-proclaimed "self-hating democrat" Mickey Kaus paid UCSB a visit on Monday, giving an introduction to blogging in my global journalism class. Kaus was introduced as a pioneer in the field, and the #1 blogger (which I'm not even sure you could quantify, but just going by hits I'd say it's Kos, not Kaus, by a landslide--roughly 400,000/day!).

I was pretty skeptical about what he had to say...I wanted to know what his deal was, you couldn't be too sure just from reading KausFiles on Slate (though I found he generally seems to come down on the right, rather than the left side of the fence). Someone at DailyKos addressed him as "uber-hack." I couldn't really say if this was the case, so I waited to see if he might suggest it himself.

He commented that the "media concentration issue is dead," (I beg to differ, media is still contracting), and that in spite of the largest blogs being liberal, conservative blogs in the ratings tail (that receive no traffic, mind you) dominate the blogosphere. A study from MyDD shows they do not, though if they did, it'd be through unreasoned attacks and insults (in spite of what Kaus said about lefty blogs being more extreme). Kaus reasoned that there must be more conservative blogs because embattled conservatives feel there's a need to counteract the liberal media bias propogated by CNN and the NYT (@#%$*&!!!). Funny, there seems to be some collusion between the MSM and blogs, (on CNN, that bastion of liberal power, no less!) but not surprisingly, neither the MSM outlets, nor the blogs they feature, are liberal.

Oh, and Kaus also made a quip about terrorist blogs and the Dean internet movement. After saying them in almost the same breath, he noted that he should be careful not to draw any parallels between the two...har. He actually quoted Rush Limbaugh during the talk, so perhaps that's the source of his material.

My guess is he was probably right in saying that there isn't really a place for "wishy washy centrists" like himself in the blogosphere (though truth be told Kaus is probably only a bit more fair and balanced than Fox). From the Centrist Coalition blog--"what really bugs me is, they're ignoring the center again. Say something about us. Bash us! We exist."