Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Politics / Woods What Happens When a Content Aggregator Refuses to Aggregate?
Posted by Jeff Woods on Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 11:51 AM
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Out of the breathless excitement over Tennessee Republicans' latest moment in the national spotlight has sprung an ancillary debate among bloggers: Why did Post Politics' Adam Kleinheider refuse to link to the story for so long? Usually right on top of all the state's political news, no matter how silly or trivial, Kleinheider is a tireless content aggregator. So why, as the rest of the state's blogosphere was going crazy over Sherri Goforth's email, was Kleinheider refusing to aggregate that content? (OK, so this isn't exactly an earthshaking controversy, but it's a slow day and this is a blog after all.)
As Kleinheider sat on his hands, it didn't go unnoticed among bloggers. Ilissa Gold pointed out that it wasn't until 5:33 p.m. that he finally posted the story and that was after Democratic Party chair Chip Forrester called for Goforth's firing. Gold wrote Kleinheider was "apparently waiting for the Forrester statement so he could make it about 'those crazy Chipinista with their demands!' "
Today, Kleinheider is drawing more criticism for throwing up a right-wing blogger's unsupported accusations against an unidentified Democratic legislative staffer. Kleinheider's headline: "Don't Think This One Is Gonna Make It To Wonkette." Southern Beale's retort: "ACK didn't think the Sherri Goforth story was newsworthy but he calls our attention to this e-mail sent by a Democratic Party staffer."
A political conservative, Kleinheider defended himself in a long, rambling post last night. He denied he was ignoring the story because it makes Republicans look bad. Instead, he claimed he was purposely sacrificing web traffic in a principled journalistic stand. He said he knew about Goforth's email a couple weeks ago but decided against writing about it because she's only a legislative staffer. "A man's got to have a code," he wrote. He was cutting her some slack.
"Why? It's quite simple really. Sherri Goforth is a civilian. She is not a blogger. She is not a politician. She is not an operative. She is, essentially, a secretary. A secretary in the legislature for 20 years."His post didn't explain why he also routinely ignores other news stories that conservatives wouldn't like to read. Unless we missed it, he has failed all session, for instance, to post a single story about crimes committed by any of Tennessee's handgun carry permit holders. At times, he has seemed to be flacking for Ron Ramsey's gubernatorial campaign. Of course, it's OK for Kleinheider to make the Nashville Post blog a conservative platform. But it would be nice if he admitted it and stopped faking impartiality. He might want to clue in his bosses at SouthComm, too. We doubt they realize they're paying a guy to promote right-wing causes on their website.
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