Skinner's LTTE of the "New York Times": 1/10/05

[Cuban_Liberal]

Online Debate Forums

Published: January 10, 2005

To the Editor:

As the administrator of the Web site Democratic Underground, I am perplexed as to why you would consider an obscure posting on a busy Internet discussion forum to be worthy of an article ("Myths Run Wild in Blog Tsunami Debate," news article, Jan. 3).

Your article did not make clear that the message in question was posted by a completely anonymous individual, whose identity and political agenda are impossible to determine. The article also did not mention that the posting appeared to be an innocent question from a person guilty of nothing more than ignorance. Indeed, the posting's title (which you did not mention) was "One more dumb question regarding the earthquake in Asia."

Our discussion forum is different from a traditional blog. We get approximately 25,000 messages posted each day, and we cannot possibly check them all for accuracy.

It is fairly common for right-wing Web sites to cherry-pick the most extreme or outlandish posts from our forum in order to paint all liberals as wacky or extreme. I was surprised to see The Times doing it, too.

David Allen
Washington, Jan. 5, 2005


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/opinion/l10blog.html

:yourock:

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Oh yeah baby, they posted it! Did it make the print edition?

[Cuban_Liberal]

3. I can't honestly say. n/t

[itzamirakul]

2. EXCELLENT! ....n/t

[papau]

4. Nice - Maybe today I will send the NYT fewer evil thoughts!

Thanks David for sending an excellent letter.

:toast:

:-)

[Florida_Geek]

5. Must buy today's NYT

:D

[wicket]

6. alright skinner!!!!!

:kick:

[buddhamama]

7. Excellent letter, Skinner

:yourock:

It will be interesting to see if the NYT puts the letter into print. :bounce:

[liberal N proud]

8. Good letter.

[indigobusiness]

9. Well stated.

Good defense. DU is well represented.

[tavalon]

10. Kudos Skinner

Concise and well written. I do wonder if they'll have the guts to print it.

[Norquist Nemesis]

11. Woo Hoo!

:yourock: *happydance*

[TexasChick]

12. You freckin' tell them David! I think they are reaching to discredit you

for some reason.

[Cuban_Liberal]

13. kick n/t

[Walt Starr]

14. BRAVO SKINNER!

[BlueEyedSon]

15. Printed on page A18 today!!!!

Good work skinner, you struck a blow for the good guys (us)!

[oldtime dfl_er]

16. Truly excellent letter!

Put 'em in their place without putting em down toooo much...i love the way you point out the diff between DU and blogs. Currently blogs are the hot thing amongst the MSM who doesn't seem to realize blogs have been around for a good 7-8 years in one form or another. And DU aint a blog.



www.cafepress.com/showtheworld

[AP]

17. Did they edit the part out where Skinner says that it's probably bad...

...journalism to cite anonymous postings as evidence of anything?

Or was that not in the letter originally?

[BlueEyedSon]

18. LOL... it's implied, and its unedited.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

19. Skinner says they made minor edits only

Either way, it is extremely auspicious that Skinner got this letter published. Only good things will follow for DU.
Kudos to the man! Skinner ROCKS!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x96298#96370

[gratuitous]

20. The only addition I would have made

Was to say that by judging the totality of DU by one post is about as fair and honest as someone judging the totality of the New York Times by one comment made in a reader forum. Which is to say not fair and honest at all, and it's shocking and dismaying that the Times would use such a tactic. Let's all hope that it was an aberration and not a trend, but we will be watching the Times very carefully.

[Vidar]

21. Way to go, fearless leader!

[Miami Liberal]

22. Excellent!

[Spazito]

23. Excellent letter!

Great work, Skinner!

[Tansy_Gold]

24. Excellent letter (plus a stupid question)

Excellent letter, and says what needed to be said.

Now, I'm probably just ignorant and way behind the times, but is the "David Allen" who appears to be the same person as "Skinner" the same "David Allen" of Plan 9 Publishing and Black Box Voting? I mean, it's not that unusual a name, but I just thought I'd ask.



Tansy Gold, the curious

[Skinner]

26. We're different people.

I am not the David Allen of Plan 9 publishing.

[Tansy_Gold]

28. Thanks for clearing that up!

I figured if I caught the similarity of names, someone else might and might not think to ask but just ASSUME. . . . you know, kinda like NYT just ASSUMING that all DU posters are tinfoil hat fruitcakes?

Tansy Gold, who is not a tinfoil hat fruitcake so stop saying that!

[cry baby]

25. Thank you for defending us, great job! n/t

[ThorsHammer]

27. Nice LTTE; can't hurt to clarify things