Over on the election law list, Bob Bauer offers these criticisms of my blogging this morning.
A brief response to Bob’s first paragraph. I gave a more extensive excerpt from Corrado/Mann (not Ornstein/Mann) because it is on Roll Call and therefore not accessible for those who don’t have a paid subscription, whereas the Broder piece is in the Washington Post, which has free registration. Consistent with copyright laws, I always try to provide more extensive (but fair use excerpts) for those items that readers cannot see without paying.
As for the caustic reader comments, if I had received such comments about Corrado/Mann I certainly would have posted them as well.
This is the second complaint this week about what I choose to link to. Jeffrey Hauser wrote: “in some unintentional and hard-to-fault way, Rick’s compilation of GOP ‘sky is falling’ links — when the reality is that Bush + 501(c)(4)s surely is >>> Kerry + 527s — helps further this smokescreen.” I have had other complaints in the past (in private messages) about the coverage on my blog, and whether it is biased one way or the other.
Given these complaints, I thought now would be a good time for a response. Perhaps my news coverage is biased in some subconscious way, but my intended criterion for linking has been that I link to all articles in major newspapers that I find on topics broadly of interest to election law. I link to most commentaries on election law as well, whether I disagree with them or not.
A blog is a sui generis type of medium. Part of what I do is link to news (or provide news occasionally that is not covered by the media) and part of what I do is offer opinion. In the “news” component, I try not to link to only those items that support my personal views. Some blogs and websites, even on election law, are different—they link to articles (or to other blogs) that reinforce their own opinions about the state of the world. There is room for both kinds of coverage in cyberspace I think.
Of course, if any listserv member or blog reader comes across articles or viewpoints to which I am not linking, send me a link in an e-mail. Chances are, as those who have done so can attest, I’ll link to what you send so long as it is germane to election law.