Re: the Kos flap, Chris Suellentrop points out that bloggers like Kos inhabit a bit of a netherland between journalism and activism:
Moulitsas is a different case. He’s never pretended to be a journalist – this past October, he told National Journal, “I am part of the media. But a journalist? No. If I had put a label on it, I would say I am an activist.” – but in the year since he stopped cashing Dean’s checks, he’s gained a reputation as “the liberal Instapundit” and the most popular left-wing blogger.
Suellentrop doesn’t quite appreciate how ambiguous Kos’ position really is. He started a bi-partisan blog in 2003 called Political State Report to cover politics at the state level leading up to the 2004 election. One of the purposes of this blog (to which I contributed for a while; see this entry commenting on one of my articles) was to obtain press credentials to cover political events such as the conventions. When this was announced, I quit and asked for my postings to be removed because it was obvious that the press role was in conflict with the activist role. I was an activist, and had been for a while, and didn’t want to try and pass myself off as anything else.
So Kos has pretty consistently leveraged his activism with consulting and journalism of a sort, no matter what he’s saying now. So regardless of how you feel about Zephyr Teachout and Jerome Armstrong, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga is a study in conflicts of interest and limited credibility.
Via Jarvis.
UPDATE: Temple Stark, current editor of Political State Report, is insistent that I mention Kos is no longer associated with Polstate, other than providing hosting for it. He doesn’t want this efforts damaged by association with Kos, and I can appreciate that.
At the risk of getting even slightly embroiled in this mess, though Markos started Political State Report in Jan. 2003 I have operated the Political State Report site since Oct. 2003. I would appreciate that clarification added to your post.
In case anyone looks, the site still does exists on Dailykos.net because I have not had the technical wherewithall to move it to my own server. That will happen this year, however.
I took Political State Report over after Markos said the site would die if someone didn’t. I didn’t want it to die, so I took it over. I had been a half-hearted contributor myself for WA, picking a party affiliation that I figiued would be offensive to no one.
I have never met the man or even talked with him on the phone. He has e-mailed the Polstate.com Yahoo group with advice, one voice out of many who chipped in with opinions on the direction of the site.
I’m glad you included the word bipartisan because that is how the site remains and something I need at the site. As a reporter myself I would not be comfortable running the site were it any other way.
– Temple Stark
Managing Editor | Moderator
Political State Report
http://www.polstate.com
figured. sorry.
Temple, my post is accurate as it is and I don’t see any reason for a clarification.
Sigh. Whatever. I didn’t say it wasn’t accurate otherwise I would have asked for a correction. I’m just saying your post leaves the impression that Markos still runs the site, which is slightly damaging to me and what I’m trying to do with the site. A clarifaction would be nice.
Thanks for clarifying your reasons. I’ve updated the post.
You are, indeed, a scholar and a gentleman for ever more. Thank you very much. – temple