Journolist: Source of Right Wing Paranoia and Other Malidies.

I know it's been on HBO for more than a month and most of you have already seen it, but it fits.

If you haven't seen it, click on it for the schedule.

OK. When I heard about this, I was just a bit upset.

The left has moved into a secret email listserve where left-wing bloggers, policy guys, and journalists collaborate online to form news stories that inevitably skew to the left.

I mean, no one let me know about it.

So naturally I just thought that my input wasn't wanted. But remembering the source, it was from REDSTATE, one of the many sites that right wingers go to in order to get their neuroses validated. You know, "Yes, you have every reason to be paranoid." and for the persecution complexed, "Yes, white, male, conservatives are the most oppressed group in America." So, I thought that I would check into it before I sent my resignation to the Vast Left Wing Blogger/Liberal Media Conspiracy to Make Conservatives Look Like Slack Jawed Knuckle Draggers. The VLWBLMCMCLLSJKD and I have had a long and happy association and I hated to end it.

You've gotta admit that REDSTATE had an impeccable source.

i’m told otherwise. I am told, quite reliably I might add, that left wing bloggers and policy guys use this site as an express train to get their ideas into the mainstream media. And with sympathetic reporters who take the presuppositions made as truth, then add to those some original reporting, you have not an objective media, but a left wing echo chamber dominating print journalism and mainstream television journalism.

When you're told something, quite reliably, well hell, it has to be true.

It's not just REDSTATE, it's all over the right wing blogosphere now.

It all started with this article from Politico, JournoList: Inside the echo chamber. It appears to be a masterfully lame attempt to make a lot out of very little. You know, like Wall Street.

There actually is a JournoList. It's a list server operated by Ezra Klein, associate editor at The American Prospect. And this is what he has to say about the right wing hysteria.

As for sinister implications, is it "secret?" No. Is it off-the-record? Yes. The point is to create a space where experts feel comfortable offering informal analysis and testing out ideas. Is it an ornate temple where liberals get together to work out "talking points?" Of course not. Half the membership would instantly quit if anything like that emerged. There are no government or campaign employees on the list. More to the point, there are a number of folks who are straight news reporters and consciously eschew partisanship. Also, Erick Erickson writes:

I’m told such luminaries as David Shuster at MSNBC, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, a host of New York Times magazine writers, Frank Rich, and others all collaborate on this list.I'm not sure who told him that.

Not one of those people is on Journolist. If they were, I imagine I'd get booked for more spots on Maddow. It is true that the list is center to left. That's not about fostering ideology but preventing a collapse into flame war. The emphasis is on empiricism, not ideology.

Honestly, Olbermann, Maddow and Rich, not a one of them are on Journalist. So this is obviously just another example of the Right's perceptions being, once again, greater than the sum of the problem. At least it's entertaining.

Later.