Conservative Blogs More Effective Than Liberal Blogs

Editor and Publisher looks at an upcoming article in the New York Times Magazine which finds conservative blogs to be more effective than liberal blogs in political influence:

In fact, Crowley admits that his argument for conservative blog supremacy may seem “counterintuitive,” noting the Howard Dean phenomenon in early 2004 and heavy Web traffic numbers for liberal blogs such as DailyKos. (He does not mention that studies of online traffic show that, overall, there are more highly-popular liberal blogs than conservative ones.) But he explains that “Democrats say there’s a key difference between liberals and conservatives online. Liberals use the Web to air ideas and vent grievances with one another, often ripping into Democratic leaders….Conservatives, by contrast, skillfully use the Web to provide maximum benefit for their issues and candidates.”

We would never want liberal blogs to repeat their party’s talking points without thought or fact-checking as regularly occurs in the conservative blogs. On the other hand, what we do see in the liberal blogosphere is often no better. Instead of repeating the party line without thought, we have certain liberal blogs, such as Daily Kos, which regularly post irrational attacks on the party’s last nominee without thought or fact checking. The ditto heads at these sites are every bit as bad as the Limbaugh ditto heads in repeating their false claims such as that Kerry supported the war or repeating their totally irrational mantras that Kerry conceded before all the votes were counted.

Attacking the party leadership when wrong is one thing. Repeating the campaign slogans of a primary opponent long after the primary is over, especially those which were blatantly untrue, is totally counterproductive.