More analysis at Big Journalism: Alternet: Soros-Funded Study Says Fox Viewers Are “Stupid”

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.

Even the study concedes that several conservative blogs allow user-generated content, and several liberal blogs do not. If we assume that restrictive commenting policies are uniquely conservative, then we wouldn’t expect liberal blogs to be run the same way. Moreover, conservative blogs like Redstate.com and FreeRepublic.com allow an enormous amount of user-generated content, which according to Ferenstein, goes against conservatism. Someone should notify Erick Erickson that he’s a CBINO (Conservative Blogger in Name Only).

Ferenstein then disqualifies his argument from being taken seriously when he fixates on HotAir.com:

The Huffington Post’s [“HP”] closest conservative competitor, Hotair.com, has only a fraction of its audience size and is tightly controlled by an inner circle of three authors… Hot Air was founded by Michelle Malkin…Malkin’s hard-line national security views are matched by Hotair’s unusually restrictive comment policy. The site permits comments only by registered users.

First, Malkin rarely blogged for HotAir.com. Ed Morrissey and the blogger known as AllahPundit do. Malkin was simply affectionately known as the “Boss Emeritus” until HotAir.com was acquired recently by Salem Communications. I’m dumbfounded that Ferenstein makes the logical jump from her national security positions to HotAir’s comment policy. Other large conservative blogs with similar policy positions, like Ace of Spades HQ, allow comments without registration. Conversely, the Daily Kos bans such people from commenting.

Furthermore, comparisons with HP are misleading. It has a larger audience than HotAir because it pays for Associated Press content, has numerous full-time employees to run the site, and, to the best of my knowledge, doesn’t pay its bloggers a penny. Ferenstein’s analysis of HP gets even more bizarre:

By contrast, the left-leaning [HP]…has thousands of bloggers and invites active users to become featured authors and comment facilitators…Thus, from just a snapshot of the top political bloggers, one catches a glimpse of an emerging pattern: leadership and control from the right, and equality and community on the left.

It was only recently that HP invited users to become featured comment facilitators. Previously, HP moderated comments heavily. So, whatever success HP has achieved, it cannot be attributed to its new comment facilitators. Also, I’m a regular reader of HP and I’ve never seen an active user become a featured author.

Towards the end, Ferenstein contradicts himself by addressing the Scott Brown victory:

Indeed, conservative Scott Brown’s stunning victory…took its strategy from Obama’s playbook…Brown permitted an unknown universe of latent conservative activists to contribute as they saw fit.

Right, so the Tea Party movement via decentralized networks managed to get Scott Brown elected. This disputes everything Ferenstein said about conservatives needing a hierarchal structure. Scott Brown even has similar foreign policy stances to Malkin. I thought according to Ferenstein that a “hard-line” foreign policy position would lead to a top-down approach to campaigning?

Finally, Ferenstein addresses the fact that youth dominate the Internet, but fails to draw the correct conclusion that, that is the reason for the phenomenon of liberals also dominating the Internet.

Russell J. Dalton… says that among politically active youth, liberals are substantially more likely to donate money, attend a rally and participate in online discussions…Dalton writes…[T]he very structure of the internet as a decentralized grouping of communities may never appeal to the large portion of right-wingers who prefer military-style hierarchies and commanding leaders.

So either the Tea Party doesn’t show up on Ferenstein’s radar, or the Tea Party is not a conservative movement.

Overall, Ferenstein ignores the obvious fact that younger—and by extension more liberal—people dominate the Internet, which explains liberal blogs’ popularity. But it has nothing to do with liberal ideology itself.

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?

I bring up Kristof not because I agree with all of his personal politics; I don’t, nor do I bring him up because I believe he is a perfect journalist with no bias whatsoever.  Instead, I choose to spotlight Kristof because most journalists respect his work and it sets a great benchmark for what the Tea Party should expect out of journalists.  By using Kristof’s method as a professional standard, I cannot be accused of simply accusing all reporters of having a liberal bias.

Now, let’s compare Kristof’s standards to the recent Tea Party reporting of the N-Word allegedly being directed at congressmen.

Supposedly, the N-Word was yelled 15 times at Rep. Lewis D-Ga and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus by Tea Party members.  How do reporters know this happened?  Well, Rep. Lewis said it happened along with a few other members of the Caucus who were with him.  However, there is no video evidence of this occurring despite numerous recordings of the event.

Andrew Breitbart has offered $100,000 to the United Negro College Fund for any video evidence of the charges.  Breitbart is now being accused of commentating on a video that did not record the correct time of the alleged event despite no other known videos demonstrating use of the N-Word. All Breitbart was asking for was additional evidence.  None exists.

Moreover,  police at the scene apparently didn’t see the need to intervene nor did they report hearing the N-Word yelled.

Lastly, as if this was not bad enough, numerous reporters have cited Rep. Lewis’ past civil rights-era achievements as evidence that this event occurred.  The relevance of this fact does not seem clear.  Worse yet, anonymous “white” lawmakers have been cited, with no evidence presented, simply an assertion.

Based on Kristof’s standard of employing rational skepticism of every source, this is not journalism.  In the case of the Tea Partiers, accusations are accepted at face value, biases of the accusers are ignored, and the accused are slandered because they dare ask for evidence.

If this is the new journalistic standard, there is no reason why “journalists” who engage in such slander should be considered professionals.  If Kristof is willing to be skeptical of people claiming hundreds of villagers were massacred in the Congo, I think it is reasonable for our free press to be skeptical that the N-word was yelled 15 times in public, with dozens of video cameras present, and yet without any evidence actually recorded.

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:

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?