CORRECTING THE RECORD ON THE PJ MEDIA STORY AND OTHER DIVERSIONS
This is pretty surreal. There have been dozens of posts on the discontinuation of PJM’s ad network and the majority of them seem to think that PJ Media is going under or has gone under.
It re-confirms a longstanding suspicion of mine - one that I’ve shared with other “long form” bloggers and essayists on the web. The fact is, the majority of people do not read what we write. They either skim the piece and choose one bone to pick with the author or, even more commonly, don’t even bother to do that and simply glean the subject matter from the title of the post and say any old thing in the comments about what we wrote.
This becomes painfully obvious when some commenter throws 200 words at me, complaining I didn’t raise this point or that one when, in fact, the point was raised - sometimes repeatedly.
Now, I will be the first to say (although I can guarantee you it will appear in the comments at least once) that I am pretty full of myself if I actually believe most people want to read a 1500 word blog post from some guy named Moran - at least on a daily basis. No doubt, some of what I write is indeed worth reading from beginning to end. Other posts, not so much. My beef isn’t necessarily with those who think I’m a crummy writer but rather with those who comment on what I write pretending to have read and absorbed what I’ve written. If I demand honesty from myself when writing, shouldn’t I hold my readers to the same standard?
A few years ago, I actually took to banning people who played that game but in the end, realized it is a function of the internet that very few have the time or interest to read an essay - unless it’s by Bill Whittle, Mark Steyn, or some other brilliant writer. So I relented and allowed all the banned folks back in. (I will do the same on “Blogroll Amnesty Day” this week. My list of banned IP’s over the last year runs to less than 2 a month.)
So it is not a shock that people have substituted their own interpretation of the news regarding the demise of PJM’s ad network, pulling from it the erroneous information that PJ Media is toast, that the website is kaput, that PJTV is on the ropes (or a hopeless cause), and that the company will be out of business in a few months. Some of this is surely wishful thinking on the part of long time critics. Some of it may be jealousy or hurt feelings (lots of that over the years). Some of it is political partisan warfare as the left universally celebrates the “downfall” of a conservative media platform - not recognizing because they never read it, that the range of opinion on the PJ website so far outstrips anything on “progressive sites” that it is obvious lefty detractors don’t have a clue what kind of site PJM actually strives to be or they wouldn’t reveal their ignorance so proudly.
We have had liberal writers in the past contribute to the site and I hope we can increase the participation of the left in the future. We have featured many dozens of articles that were highly critical of conservatives, Republicans, and Bush with many dozens more supportive. We have had religious conservatives, moderate conservatives, libertarians, and moderate liberals write on every political and public policy topic you can think of. I am sorry but the idea that The Huffington Post or any comparable site on the left has one tenth the range of opinion and thought featured regularly at the PJ Media site just doesn’t hold water. And liberals would realize that if they bothered to visit every once and a while. The fact that the demise of the ad network has smoked them out of the walls and has them trying to outdo one another in snarky tropes, gloating at the perceived “failure” of PJM without even being familiar with what regularly appears on the webpage reveals PJM’s critics to have the intellectual shallowness we’ve come to know and love.
This becomes painfully obvious when the reader of these screeds is informed that PJM is a “far-right” website. (Since most liberals believe anyone to the right of Che is “far right,” I suppose it makes sense - in a twisted sort of way.) Even if you were to stop by the site and read a couple of articles once a month, anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence would realize immediately the falsity of that statement. If one wants uniformity of opinion, go left, young man, go left.
I doubt whether any left wing site would have featured a pro-con argument at the top of the webpage that defended and criticized a controversial decision made by the parent company and yet PJM did exactly that regarding the decision to send Joe the Plumber to Israel. (There were also a couple of other articles that examined the issue and criticized the decision.) PJM has featured other writers that went entirely against the grain of conservative thought on torture, immigration, the war, health care, and other policy prescriptions. We have featured several articles highly critical of Sarah Palin, John McCain, the Republican leadership, and yes, the far right of the movement.
To refer to PJ Media as a “far right” website is ludicrous. Worse, it is ignorant. It reveals the writer of such nonsense to not know what they are talking about - something that is not unusual even among the largest lefty blogs. And to top it off, gloating over the demise of a website that will not be demising adds a little schadenfruede right back at ya. To spend 1000 words doing a verbal sack dance over a foe that is still on its feet and has just tossed a 50 yard bomb for a touchdown only makes the writer look silly indeed.
I have taken some time to defend PJ Media not just because I work there but because the amount of false, misleading, and just plain dumb information that has exploded on the net as a result of the news that the blogger network has been discontinued requires a response. Setting the record straight is not my job (what I write here is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the thinking of PJ Media’s management or employees). But long time readers of this site know I take particular pleasure in showing the right’s critics to be shallow, stupid, obstinate, and without honor. And the inability of PJM’s critics to even get the elementary facts of the story correct continues to prove my point.
ADDENDUM:
I didn’t mention that there will be a new approach to bringing revenue in through the website. One model has been discarded and another will take its place. To be completely accurate, one could say that the original model has indeed failed but how you can stretch that notion and say the entire enterprise is a failure is beyond me.
PJM is one of the sites I read daily with my morning coffee. I love to site, the writing and the openess of the blogs. Frankly, I was unaware the model as you say, failed. Seems right-on to me! I give you many thanks for a well presented blog and timely articles.
Comment by JohnC. — 2/1/2009 @ 9:54 am
I don’t mind the ads on blogs, and I click on them from time to time — all readers should click on one every day as a courtesy to the host. I commend PJM for bringing a network of blogs together and I hardly think it is far right (Rick’s too moderate for me and they chose him, after all). What media needs is a competitor to Associated Press and I’d like to see the PJM morph into an Associated Blogger Press.
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Rick’s take on events is an important click for me, but I am scanning, not usually savoring. PJTV is an attempt at appointment television on demand by way of Fox News Channel meets HBO. But they don’t get it, I use Hotair and the internet as my Cliffsnotes cheatsheet shortcut on the news. The last think I want to do is get bogged down on their full length video library. If there’s a video clip I need to see, I trust hotair to post a clip, and even then I just do a quick read of the text and move on.
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But how is RWNH to prosper? Do you do the cheesy store like Hugh has at Hughhewitt.com? A monthly reminder for the tip jar? Blog ads? Auction off a dinner with Rick? No, I am NOT going to suggest calendar, the mind’s eye just can’t go there. But Rick is America’s best curmudgeon blogger, maybe that niche can be exploited.
Comment by mark30339 — 2/1/2009 @ 10:31 am
Just to focus on one point in your article. As the Obama Empire coninues to develop cracks, from foreign policy blunders (Iran, NK, and others I’m sure) to domestic policy dead ends (the stimulus bill, abortion promotion, etc.) I optimistically believe there will be a slowly increasing number of rational liberal/leftist commentators who could and should be invited into dialogue on the errors to come and more realistic and productive policy directions as alternatives. Obama’s, and Pelosi’s, idea of “bipartisanship” and “compromise” is crystal clear - “I won.” I enjoy PJM as a written site and it would be even more interesting if it helps to build a new, yes bipartisan, majority which can help to prevent some of the damage Obama-Pelosi-Reid will inflict on the U.S. and the world if they are left unchecked. Here’s one person who hopes you all can find a way to work out the financial issues.
Comment by boqueronman — 2/1/2009 @ 1:20 pm
Just for the record, even when my comments are stupid, I read every word. That said, this entire post is “preaching to the choir”. The people that actually read your posts already know that ONLY the revenue model failed, not PJ media. The idiots that don’t read it, won’t read this one. Sad but true.
Maybe if you could start drawing little cartoons for the lefty morons that think they can glean the content of the entire post from the title…
Comment by lionheart — 2/1/2009 @ 1:30 pm
I read of this at the AOS site. I never got the sense that PJM was tanking.
Did I mention it would be good idea to use less salt in the recipe you wrote about?
Comment by Dennis — 2/2/2009 @ 1:31 am
Maybe more folks would leave more “coherent” comments if you didn’t spend half of your threads being vindictive. You know just get to the point without all of the acerbic spew. At least you don’t wander off with your liberal bitch slapping in your reviews of 24. Also if you wouldn’t retaliate against what you consider to be dolt individuals leaving comments, with your juvenile name calling, you might give people a reason to just read what you have to say about the majority of your topics,which seem reasonably well argued, instead of wondering who your patience has run out with lately. Sure you don’t suffer fools well but sometimes you look like one in the process of rendering your wrath. Sincerely, Scott.
Comment by the Fly-Man — 2/2/2009 @ 6:39 am
I learned a long time ago that businesses and other organizations are just like people ..
they are born, they grow up, they get old, and they die .. some faster than others
Comment by Neo — 2/2/2009 @ 10:23 am
the Fly-Man said: Sure you don’t suffer fools well but sometimes you look like one in the process of rendering your wrath.
Did you catch his “Google Blocks Conservative Websites” outburst this weekend? a classic of right-wing paranoia and general idiocy!
RM wrote: “more a nuisance than a threat”
shouldn’t that be this site’s motto?
Yes - and half the Democratic party was paranoid when Google blocked sites supporting Hillary? And the constant gaming of conservative websites with blocks being put on conservative Blogspot blogs on a regular basis?
And the Google Bombs that were directed against Bush that Google refused to address for 3 years while the Google Bomb against Obama was defused in a matter of hours.
Paranoia? What paranoia?
And do you have an independent thought of your own? Must we continually be subjected to your shopworn talking points? Perhaps not in this comment but a perusal of your past efforts are so lame as to be beyond belief. I mean, my cat is more original than you are. Besides, anonymous blowhards like you - people who don’t have the guts to use their real names and would wet their pants if they were forced to make their insults to the faces of their targets - I find to be more tiresome than annoying
ed.
Comment by HyperIon — 2/2/2009 @ 6:55 pm
Hey Rick, relax on the “google bombing” of Bush, will ya? Turns out that Google didn’t stop bombing against anybody until 2007, when they developed an algorithm to correct such behavior. So its really a non-issue that they only took a few day to deploy this action for Obama, because unlike 2003, they had the technology at hand to correct it!
I mean, what can “conservatives” really do about this “problem”? Develop an “family-friendly” alternative to Google? We all know know how well Conservapedia competes with Wikipedia…
Comment by Surabaya Stew — 2/3/2009 @ 8:41 am