Topic: NewsBusters
Wannabe new-media guru Matthew Sheffield uses an Aug. 15 NewsBusters post to mount a weird defense of conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin from former Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton's opnion that she should be fired "because she’s just plain bad." After citing some of Pexton's criticisms, Sheffield writes:
There are several laugh-lines in the above paragraphs, one of which is Pexton's claim that Rubin "parrots and peddles every silly right-wing theory to come down the pike." If Pexton had any actual working knowledge of the conservative blogosphere, he would know that many conservatives dislike Rubin because they believe she is not enough of a team player and does not endorse arguments they see as valid. But that doesn't matter. Liberals accuse her of being a parrot for far-right beliefs so it must be true.
That's right -- Sheffield's "defense" of Rubin is to Heather her by declaring she's "not enough of a team player."
Sheffield then turns his ire in the direction of a different Post blogger:
In truth, if any Post blogger deserves to be fired, it is Ezra Klein for his creation of the infamous Journo-list where politicians and liberal news reporters and opinioneers collaborated on how to shape the news to become more liberal. Nothing that Rubin has actually or allegedly done was ever as outrageous and abusive of reader trust than Journo-list. Klein created it before he worked for the Post but was never fired after it was exposed while he was in the paper's employ.
This from a man who, along with everyone else at the MRC, has been utterly silent about Groundswell, where conservative news reporters and opinioneers collaborated on how to shape the news to become more conservative. What a hypocrite.
