Yesterday I had the displeasure of reading Gregory Ferenstein’s column, “Why the web benefits liberals more than conservatives.” Ferenstein’s thesis is that liberal ideological characteristics facilitate Internet success, while the opposite is true for conservatism. Frankly, his entire piece is based on assumptions without evidence. Ferenstein states:

From…the million-strong Barack Obama Facebook page to the huge audience of the Huffington Post, liberals have been the dominant political force on the internet since the digital revolution began.”

Ferenstein avoids the most important reason for this phenomenon: Age. Younger people dominate the Internet, and younger people are more liberal by significant margins. So, Ferenstein could replace the phrase, “Liberals have been the dominant political force on the Internet since the digital revolution began,” with “Young people have been the dominant demographic on the Internet since the digital revolution began.” They have the same meaning.

He continues:

Research…suggests that the reason behind this imbalance may be the liberal belief system itself.

Liberals, the research finds, are oriented toward community activism…and feature user-generated content. Conservatives…are more comfortable with a commanding leadership and use restrictive policies to combat disorderly speech in online forums.

(more…)

I recently watched the HBO documentary Reporter,  profiling the New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Nicholas Kristof, as he reported on the genocide taking place in the Congo.

Notably, the documentary spent considerable time focusing on Kristof’s journalistic standards, rather than only spotlighting the great tragedy taking place.  In fact, much of the video documents Kristof teaching his trade to journalism students.  That part of the film was very revealing.

One highlight of the documentary was when Kristof traveled to a village that had just been ransacked by militants.  Villagers told Kristof that an enormous number of people were murdered.  Their stories were horrific.

However, despite their eyewitness testimony, Kristof was skeptical about what he was told.  In fact, he continued to inquire about who saw the murders.  Was there proof about the number of people killed?  Was there any evidence?  He didn’t believe it was enough to simply report that villager X saw Y happen; he wanted the truth.  Reflecting on that clip, I wonder whether I would have held myself to such a high standard, or would I have simply reported what someone told me? (more…)

Many people over the last few weeks have noticed the fawning media coverage on behalf of the Coffee Party movement. Moreover, no skepticism or research was done to investigate the claims made by the newest Coffee Party leaders. Simple Google searches, however, have revealed that they are simply former Obama campaigners upset that the Tea Party has been able to thwart their Leftist agenda.

As a result, I decided to join the Coffee Party’s gathering on March 13th, in Washington, D.C., to learn what it was really all about.

The meeting started by people introducing themselves and saying why there want to be part of the Coffee Party. Many were upset about the the Tea Party movement. Others had absolutely incoherent reasons for being there.

One thing that I noticed was that many attempted to appear nonpartisan and open to discussion. However, their personal tweets have demonstrated that, that is not their agenda. In fact, when I sat down to talk to some of the people off camera during the group therapy sessions (see video below of the sessions), I heard the phrase “Teabagger” thrown around quite a bit.

The video below captures most of the event. There were about 100 people attending. Thankfully, after being there I could see that this is most certainly not going to grow into the Tea Party movement, unless of course the media keeps propping it up as something that it is not.

Video follows after the jump: (more…)

While some people debate the merits of the current healthcare legislation in Congress, or attempt to expose corruption in our government, Max Blumenthal instead engages in character assassination using the most questionable sources.

Recently, as has been well-documented on BigJournalism, Blumenthal branded James O’Keefe a racist for attending a debate at which Jared Taylor spoke. He did this despite the fact that O’Keefe sided with Taylor’s opposition, a black conservative named Kevin Martin.

The video below summarizes Blumenthal’s Alinsky tactics and highlights clips from the most recent CPAC where he continues his viciousness. As Andrew Breitbart wondered, what does Blumenthal really stand for, if it isn’t for destroying people’s lives?