Michael's told me he has reached out to the mainstream media, and gotten a tepid response at best.
I would agree that left-wing bloggers need to be spending a lot more time looking at the work of people like Totten and Yon. I'm amazed they don't, since both men have been part of the blogging world since its earliest days. It's made me take a dim view of that part of the blog world, it really has.
the mass media isnt going to embrace Michael as long as his work is attached to one side of the blogsphere by association. Until he can build a brand separate from that, hes not going to have cred, which is a shame because his work is so excellent. I think the best route to the media for him woudl be via the magazines - it bet The Atlantic or TNR would be good starting points. I am hoping to draw Michel himself to this thread if he has time.
As far as left wng bloggers go, the onus is on the Michaels to - ahem - pimp their work. A diary at DKos with a routine announcement of a new post (and the intro above the fold, like he does here sometimes) is a minimum.
I think Michael should stay out of the mainstream media altogether. He often publishes in magazines, but they are inevitably conservative in ideology.
The problem is, of course, that they're using him, an "independent," to prove a point. Michael himself may be somewhere in between a conservative and a liberal, but to people who don't know his work, he seems like he has an agenda. I know this is unfair, but since he only manages to sell his stories to right-leaning publications, it appears that way.
The best idea for him, in my opinion, would be to continue with a tactic he's used on occasion. He runs a poll asking his readers what kind of story he should cover. I think that has a lot of commercial potential, probably more than just asking for donations. Less personal independence, of course, but he'd be real close to his readership that way.
About two-thirds of my blog reading is in the small, centrist blogosphere with the remaining third divided pretty equally between Right and Left blogospheres and the following point is based solely on my own experience and observation.
I don't think that MJT would receive a good reception in the Left Blogosphere not only due to policy difference but because I think that the overwhelming majority of the American Left Blogosphere is interested in foreign policy only as it interacts with domestic policy and politics.
There are exceptions to that, of course, for example Newhoggers and Blake Hounshell, the blogger formerly known as praktike. Interestly, cernig, the head honcho at Newhoggers is a Scot.
Dave I have to strenously disagree. American Footprints, Intel Dump, Abu Aardvark, Democracy Arsenal - there is a vubrant cadre of established liberal foreign policy blogs out there and they by and large offer far more comprehensive foreign policy anlaysis from Africa to China and everything in between than anything I have seen on the right side , where the focus is always Iraq to the exclusion of all else, and even then ,much of the nuance in Yon and Totten's work gets lost because they only want to mine their work for the pro-Iraq angle.
The mass media also has a tendency to portray soldiers as being overwhelmed by either Catch-22 style existential despair or Apocalypse Now style psychos. If the soldiers have a lawsuit against the Army pending, outlets like the New York times and TNR will make them stars - even if those soldiers are, like Beauchamp, just making stuff up.
MJT interviews real soldiers. They talk about their work and daily routines in a kind of Studs Terkel style. He reports what they say. These men and women are sane and often heroic. Apparently that's not the story that the majority of editors, at least at outlets like the Times, want to hear.
Phil Carter is a sell out. He has betrayed his comrades in the military to get in the good graces of the establishment coastal law firm he now works for. His perception of Iraq is ossified in the 2005/2006 time frame. He is a step above Scott Thomas Beauchamp.
Prediction: If Dems win the Presidency and it becomes clear that withdrawal at all costs is a failed policy, then the war will become more noble in the eyes of the MSM (and therefore many more Americans), and this fine work will finally get the exposure it deserves. But not until then.
Telling these journalists that they need to approach the left is like telling a Jew to approach the Nazi's. They're not interested in this reporting because it undermines their ideology.
90 percent of lefties respond to me and my work with hostility, and often with rhetorically violent hostility. I am not going to put up with that if I don't have to. There is not enough cheese down that rat hole.
I appreciate your support Aziz. You're a good guy.
2.27.2008 10:40pm
Commenting on Dean's World is a privilege, not a right. Dean is your host, you are his guest, and you should behave in that fashion. Dean is not your babysitter, nor is he your punching bag. Please remember this. In general, you are free to disagree with anyone on any subject you wish, but abusive behavior will not be tolerated.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.
I would agree that left-wing bloggers need to be spending a lot more time looking at the work of people like Totten and Yon. I'm amazed they don't, since both men have been part of the blogging world since its earliest days. It's made me take a dim view of that part of the blog world, it really has.
As far as left wng bloggers go, the onus is on the Michaels to - ahem - pimp their work. A diary at DKos with a routine announcement of a new post (and the intro above the fold, like he does here sometimes) is a minimum.
The problem is, of course, that they're using him, an "independent," to prove a point. Michael himself may be somewhere in between a conservative and a liberal, but to people who don't know his work, he seems like he has an agenda. I know this is unfair, but since he only manages to sell his stories to right-leaning publications, it appears that way.
The best idea for him, in my opinion, would be to continue with a tactic he's used on occasion. He runs a poll asking his readers what kind of story he should cover. I think that has a lot of commercial potential, probably more than just asking for donations. Less personal independence, of course, but he'd be real close to his readership that way.
I don't think that MJT would receive a good reception in the Left Blogosphere not only due to policy difference but because I think that the overwhelming majority of the American Left Blogosphere is interested in foreign policy only as it interacts with domestic policy and politics.
There are exceptions to that, of course, for example Newhoggers and Blake Hounshell, the blogger formerly known as praktike. Interestly, cernig, the head honcho at Newhoggers is a Scot.
MJT interviews real soldiers. They talk about their work and daily routines in a kind of Studs Terkel style. He reports what they say. These men and women are sane and often heroic. Apparently that's not the story that the majority of editors, at least at outlets like the Times, want to hear.
Telling these journalists that they need to approach the left is like telling a Jew to approach the Nazi's. They're not interested in this reporting because it undermines their ideology.
I appreciate your support Aziz. You're a good guy.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.