Comments, Boxscores

Despite that, Ann Coulter easily won her second consecutive partisanship title, mostly because of her relentlessly one-sided criticism of the Democratic Party. Her ratio of 70 negative references to Democrats for every positive reference (1058 to 15) is unprecedented in the three years of Lying in Ponds statistics. Ms. Coulter was simultaneously the most positive pundit toward George W. Bush and the most negative toward John Kerry. In addition to extreme partisanship, Ms. Coulter stands out because of her array of nasty personal attacks -- she referred to various Democratic presidential candidates as a "pacifist scaredy-cat", "crazier than a March hare", a "two-faced weasel", a "coward", a "cad and a gigolo", a "low-born poseur", a "poodle to rich women", and "boobs". In addition to partisanship and incivility, Ms. Coulter is a master of deceptive and irrational rhetoric.

Paul Krugman completed another year as a New York Times columnist, making it five full years of punditry without once finding a reason to write a column consisting mostly of substantive criticsm of any Democrat on any topic or substantive praise of any Republican on any topic. Although Mr. Krugman's utterly predictable criticism of Republicans is unsurpassed, his high ranking also depends on a careful protection of Democrats. He expressed a strong preference for Howard Dean and Wesley Clark, but once John Kerry took the lead in the race for the Democratic nomination, Mr. Krugman turned on a dime and was more favorable toward Mr. Kerry than any of our 33 pundits. He has carefully avoided any mention of Democratic scandals, adding disgraced former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey to a long list of names which must not be mentioned -- Marc Rich, Al Sharpton, Robert Torricelli, etc. Back in March, I wrote a five part series exploring various aspects of Paul Krugman's amazing record of extreme partisanship.

Robert Scheer, Molly Ivins and Joe Conason are each drearily reliable Democratic partisans. Mr. Scheer has a lengthy record of deception, but is less generous with praise for Democrats than the others and wrote a relatively nuanced assessment of Ronald Reagan. Ms. Ivins dresses up her partisan rhetoric with colorful language; she uses "damn" and "hell" more than any other columnist. Mr. Conason was new to Lying in Ponds this year; he stands out for his almost Krugmanian level of reverence for Democrats.

Linda Chavez and Charles Krauthammer were drearily reliable Republican partisans this year, although they were less partisan last year. Ms. Chavez was the second most positive toward George W. Bush, trailing only Ann Coulter. Mr. Krauthammer has been busy building a record of manipulating quotes and questioning the sanity of his political opponents.

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MORE MBA LINKS: I've added links to the complete current list of Media Bloggers Association members to the blogroll. Check 'em out.

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Though Texans are far from formal, this is the only place in my travels where I have to wear a jacket and tie. I'm here to meet an old friend -- that redoubtable writer, columnist, commentator and scourge of all politicians -- particularly male ones -- Molly Ivins. Because no one talks better about Texas language than Molly.

Of course that made me straighten right up in my plastic $5 Wal-Mart chair, because the analysis of the last two years of Molly Ivins columns leaves absolutely no doubt that she is not a scourge of all politicians, nor of male politicians. She was the fifth most postive columnist toward John Kerry in 2004, and the 3rd most negative toward George W. Bush. I don't see a single negative reference in 2004 to a Democratic woman, but there are positive references to Ann Richards, Hillary Clinton, Teresa Kerry and Dianne Feinstein. There has not been a single positive reference to a Republican woman, but there are negative references to Wendy Gramm, Condoleezza Rice, Elaine Chao, and Phyllis Schafly. As the fourth most partisan pundit in the rankings, Ms. Ivins' writing actually follows a very simple pattern -- Republican politicians are bad and Democratic politicians are good.

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The Media Bloggers Association, in partnership with Zubr Communications, launched today the Tsunami Video Hosting Initiative, a public service offered in response to concerns over bandwidth issues facing bloggers doing a tremendous public service by providing video of the tsunami to the world.

The Tsunami Video Hosting Initiative is a "distributed content-broker" system that matches web hosts willing to donate server space and bandwidth with bloggers and other Tsunami video sources looking to defray their cost of hosting Tsunami video. ZubrCom has led the way by donating its services in development of the Content-Broker system as well as server space and transfer capacity.

"When the word went out that bloggers needed help dealing with the high cost of bandwidth from hosting Tsunami video," said Robert Cox of the Media Bloggers Association, "the MBA saw an opportunity to fulfill its mission by supporting citizen's media and hyperlocal news reporting by bloggers. Rather than leave it to bloggers to beg for cost reductions from their ISPs, the MBA is matching willing ISPs with willing bloggers and other video sources."

Web Hosts can donate specified amounts of storage and bandwidth. All donors will receive a mention on the Tsunami Video Hosting Initiative home page.

Check out the Tsunami Video Hosting Initiative home page.

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Does the similarity of the NYT and WSJ OJ scores contradict Michael Tomasky's finding that The Wall Street Journal's editorials were more partisan than those written by The New York Times? No, for two important reasons. First, Mr. Tomasky was careful to compare editorials written during both Democratic and Republican presidencies, but the 2004 editorials I've evaluated tell only part of the story. Second, the WSJ OpinionJournal is not the same as the WSJ -- I really don't know whether the editorials selected each day by the WSJ OJ for their On the Editorial Page feature are representative, or more partisan or less partisan than the average WSJ editorial.

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I've found few issues of significance in my lifetime that didn't have shades of gray and aspects that raised difficult questions. The fair and balanced columnists do write about these shades ... and, in my opinion, it ultimately serves to bolster their opinions, because the reader has the feeling that they are fair and they do question everything.

I think that columnists such as David Broder and Robert Samuelson hold mostly centrist views, so they naturally end up with very low partisanship scores. I admire a columnist like Richard Cohen, who can be a strident liberal critic of Republicans, yet still have the independence to hammer Michael Moore and graciously praise Ronald Reagan. Also on the left, both Clarence Page and William Raspberry are willing to grapple with difficult issues, taking seriously all sides of an argument.

On the right, Jeff Jacoby is a principled conservative, who doesn't hesitate to criticize "the most bloated budget ever", or to single out Russell Feingold for praise. In his first full year at The New York Times, David Brooks has been independent and consistently thought-provoking.

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Archives

• January 2005
  
• December 2004
  
  • NYT vs. WP vs. WSJ
  • Favorites
  • Spinning = Lying
• November 2004
  
  • Modo's Bro
  • Safire Retirement
  • Launch of the MBA
• October 2004
  
  • Stampeding Safire
  • Oliphant on a Rampage
  • Partisanship in the Open
• September 2004
  
  • The Broder-Coulter Civility Scale
  • Dowd Repeats Extra-Chromosome Comment
  • Ideology at the NYT
• August 2004
  
  • Krauthammer's Doing It Again
  • Sheer Coulter Nastiness
  • Spinsanity on Krugman
• July 2004
  
  • Somerby Shining
  • Six Month Reviews
• June 2004
  
  • What if One Side is Really Awful?
  • The Kerry Index
• May 2004
  
  • Torture in Iraq as a Scandal Case Study
  • Genuine Crossover?
• April 2004
  
  • Goodbye Mary McGrory
  • Coulter Shock!
  • The Pundits Respond
  • The Role of a Columnist
• March 2004
  
  • Victory on Columnist Corrections
  • Krugman 400
  • Krugman in the 90's
• February 2004
  
  • Check My Work
  • Changes for 2003
• January 2004
  
  • The O'Neill Affair as a Scandal Case Study
  • Good Correction, Bad Correction, No Correction
  • Pulitzer Pariah/Consistent With What?
  • Partisan Punditry 2003
• December 2003
  
  • The Dreaded Baseball Analogy
  • Dr. Krauthammer Caught Doctoring Quotes
  • DeLong's Second Question
  • DeLong's First Question
• November 2003
  
  • DeLong Defense
  • Paul Krugman 2001
  • The Economist
• October 2003
  
  • Coulter 2002
  • How Partisan is Robert Scheer?
  • Fight or Flight
• September 2003
  
  • Henninger's Slur
  • Tomasky and Equal Time
  • Coulter as Pujols
  • Krugman as Goldwater
• August 2003
  
  • How Deep is Your Partisanship?
  • Sadly, No
  • Defining Partisanship
  • David Brooks 2003
  • Luskin on Lying in Ponds
  • More Coulter Nastiness
  • The Tomasky Report
• July 2003
  
  • Upsetting the Krauthammer Equation
  • WSJ vs. NYT
  • Degrees of Negativity
  • Six Month Reviews
• June 2003
  
  • Spinsanity on Coulter, Scheer
  • Coulter Takes the Lead!
  • Dean Esmay Discussion on Political Arrogance
  • Kudzu-Eating Goats
• May 2003
  
  • Scheer and More Scheer
  • Good and Partisan?
  • Blogiversary #1
  • The Many Nicknames of Maureen Dowd
• April 2003
  
  • Sweeping Generalizations
  • What Makes a Columnist Good?
  • Partisan or Critic?
• March 2003
  
  • Is Motivation Important?
  • Party Adherence
  • Another PI Proposal
• Februrary 2003
  
  • The Atlantic
  • Nicknames
  • Partisan Non Sequitur Hall of Fame
  • A better PI
• January 2003
  
  • Gorillas of Shrillness
  • Trent Lott as a Scandal Case Study
  • 2002 Team Championship to WSJ OpinionJournal
  • Partisan Punditry 2002
• December 2002
  
• November 2002
  
  • Krugman 2000
  • Ideological yet Independent
• October 2002
  
  • Dowd and the Rule of Laws
• September 2002
  
  • Metafilter
  • Enron By Month
  • Example of Evaluation of References
  • Offhand References
• August 2002
  
• July 2002
  
  • Six Month Reviews
• June 2002
  
  • Paul Krugman and Balance
  • On The Media
  • Enron as a Scandal Case Study
  • Most 2002 References to the Word "Enron"
• May 2002
  
  • Paul Krugman's view
  • Howard Kurtz column
  • Tapped, Andrew Sullivan, democrats.com

FINAL 2004 Lying in Ponds Top Ten

Other Statistics

The Pundits

Highly Recommended and Relevant

Eric Alterman's book Sound and Fury : The Making of the Punditocracy, has an excellent history of the development of political punditry in this country. Alterman discusses his interesting and provocative ideas about how to elevate the level of pundit discourse. It is a valuable book despite the distracting ideological baggage.

According to Dr. Andrew R. Cline: "The Rhetorica Network, including my Rhetorica: Press-Politics Journal web log, is my attempt to explain the persuasive tactics of politics and the press." His discussion of media bias is very good.

Jay Rosen is the chair of the Department of Journalism at NYU. His PressThink weblog argues that "the press has become the ghost of democracy in the media machine": "So the press is a backward glancing term. To me that's what's great about it. It points back to the history of struggle for press liberty, to the long rise of public opinion, and of course to the Constitution, a source from which The Media try to draw legitimacy. But the First Amendment actually speaks of the press. It doesn't mention media. Anyone could, but then almost no one does, uphold "freedom of the media" as a great right-- worth defending and even dying for."

FactCheck.org says that they are "a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 'consumer advocate' for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics."

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