Brian Mattson, a k a The Banty Rooster, notes a bizarre and unethical distortion in the Associated Press's latest attempt to pretend it's tuned in to the blogosphere.
The AP story refers to Jollyblogger, a site whose Webmaster is staunchly in favor of keeping Terri Schiavo alive. Yet the news organization quoted a commenter to the blog who was in favor of killing Terri—and framed it in such a way that the reader could very easily believe that the commenter spoke for the blog.
How easily? The story referred to the commenter as a "correspondent."
Mattson writes:
Nice to have you finally making your way around the blogosphere, Mr. Associated Press. Couple of ground rules: getting material for your story from comments made on blog posts is a bit obscure for even bloggers, not to mention a national media outlet. If you want to find a pro-Michael Schiavo post, you can branch out a bit and find plenty of lefty bloggers to help you out. Second, please make clear who you are referring to so you don't tarnish otherwise good reputations. For my part, if I was ever quoted at all, in any context, by the Associated Press, I would take it as a tarnish to my otherwise good reputation.Read the whole thing.
Again, welcome to the blogosphere. Please at least pretend you know what you are doing.
