Wizbang: Small Blogs are Pathetic

Of the 5,000 blogs currently listed in the ecosystem I presently sit as a Large Mammal at #817 as ranked by traffic with 333 average daily visits and number 726 as ranked by links with 178 inbound unique links - well into the top 20% of either category. Imagine my surprise when Paul at Wizbang published a post and pronounced my "stats pathetic" because I had the audacity to point out his flawed coverage of a recent New York Times article. And what is the message there to the vast majority of blogs who don't even have the modest stats of my blog? Frankly, it disgusts me - and that on top of the damage that poor news blogging from a large blog does to any concept of a new media.

All I did was point out here that he falsely started an anti- New York Times meme that grew to 11 inblound links to his post and 5 to Michele Malkin who picked up his post. As a conservative blogger I love to see the Times take a fall. But my position is and always has been that if right wing blogs attack when there is nothing to attack, it undermines more serious efforts when the Times or other MSM outlets get it wrong. In this case, the New York Times did not get it wrong, Wizbang did. But they seem uninterested in taking any accountability for their actions - instead opting to cast aspersions on my intellect, my reading and comprehension abilities, and finally on my "pathetic" blog.

The facts are these:

Paul accused the Times with this:

In the end, what was at least sloppy and at worst fraudulent reporting from Somini Sengupta at the New York Times (and others) brought "more misery and heartache" to the parents and the child, and caused their separation to be extended several days.

The question now is, what is the Times going to do about it?

His reasons were that the Times erroneously reported that the issue was receiving broad coverage in the national media and that, as a judge later pointed out, only one family actually officially stepped forward to claim the child. Unfortunately for Paul, if he had bothered to read and genuinely understand the original Times story, neither of his accusations were true. It was Wizbang that was misleading in this case, not the New York Times.

The Times did indeed report the issue was receiving national media attention - in the Sri Lanka media. Paul was apparently unable to grasp that fact. Evidently, just as he would impugn any smaller blog, a nation smaller than the US couldn't possibly have a real national media in Paul's view. Furthermore, the original Times piece clearly points out that only one couple had stepped forward to officially claim the child, then being called Baby 81.

Here are the relevant snippets from the Times article:

Dateline: KALMUNAI, Sri Lanka, Jan. 25

So far, nine couples have claimed him as their own son. Some among them have threatened suicide if the baby is not delivered into their arms. Countless other parents who lost their babies to the tsunami have also rushed in to see if Baby No. 81 is theirs. The national newspapers have carried almost daily narratives about his fate. The hospital has been so mobbed that for a while, the staff hid the baby in the operating theater every night for his own protection.

Dr. K. Muhunthan, the hospital gynecologist who has taken on Baby No. 81's case, finds himself puzzled. The couples he has met seem so utterly traumatized that it is hard to know what they think. "Most of them believe this is their baby," Dr. Muhunthan said. "Maybe all children they look at, they think it's their baby. I'm not angry at them really."

She has threatened to kill herself if she doesn't get custody of Baby No. 81 - to her, Jeyaraja Abhilas, her first born. She points out that she and her husband are the only ones among the nine couples who have bothered to file for custody in a court of law.

And for pointing this out, here is a sample of what I have heard back or seen posted from Wizbang:

From his pathetic stats, this might be the case. Whatever the case I'll link the insanity if for no other reason then to get him to quit whining.

How people as stupid as you can still breath just amazes me.

goofball ... brain dead boy ...

Whatever his motivation, insanity or traffic-whoring. Here are your links. Now go play in traffic and quit emailing me. (Note - Prior to that post I had specifically asked Kevin and Paul to forego email and reply if they wished in the comments area of my post. Consequently, no link whoring, no traffic for my blog, and no on and on fighting in email. Paul disingenuiously turns that all around in his published post.)

At the risk of being a smart ass, do you have a point?

So, I've read your rant, it made no sense and you were demonstrably clueless. Now if you have a point, I'll entertain it, but so far all I've heard you do is whine because I'm conservative.

You whined and complained and you claimed I was "wrong" but I never did see which point of mine you refuted. In fact, as you noted I did not add much original content

The refuted points are addressed in even more detail in provided links for any objective reader to see. And as regards original content, clearly Wizbang didn't even come close to meeting any Fair Use standard when it picked up a story from LBO. Their soul editorial contribution amounted to little more than "The New York Times sucks" and they basically lifted the entire article from LBO. As I said elsewhere, if this is the new media, welcome to the new mediocrity.

The links have been provided for anyone with the time and inclination to look in. But, if you are one of the 4,200 plus blogs in the ecosystem with less traffic or links than me, why bother? As far as Wizbang is concerned your opinions and your blogs are pathetic anyway. Perhaps we should all take up another hobby and just allow the Wizbang's of the blogging world to tell us what we should think. It appears as though that's how they view it anyway.

In my original post linked above I mirrored Wizbang's asking what the Times would do now by asking what would Wizbang do now. Unfortunately, I've found out. Regardless of your political stripe or dedication to a competent new media emerging from blogging, Wizbang's response to honest criticism is to impugn your intellect, your politics and your blog. How unfortunate.

Comments

[jeff]

Everyone knows a site's readership is an indication of quality. Just look at the Daily Kos

[Buckley F. Williams]

"But my position is and always has been that if right wing blogs attack when there is nothing to attack, it undermines more serious efforts when the Times or other MSM outlets get it wrong."

Well said. And we should never lose sight of that point. It serves no good purpose to be the 'blog who cried wolf'.

As far as their response, it sounds like something you would expect to hear from the elitists in the MSM and the left in general. They do not respond to your point (whether they feel it is valid or not), they attack personally.

I am dropping them from my link list after posting this comment. It is purely a symbolic gesture as I am even more pathetic than you by WIzbang's standards.

[Mr. Snitch!]

I have found some posts on Wizbang to take admirable positions. I was appalled to read their reactions to this blog. I also don't care at all for the attitude toward site stats. I look at my stats, too. Spikes are fun and all that (though they don't pay the rent) and I like to think that people are reading my site, like anyone else. But gee, that's tacky and childish, and untrue besides. Readership does not necessarily equate quality or vice versa.

I still have Wizbang on my blogroll, but blogs come and go on there as I learn more about them. (Everyone gets to be an ass, even, now and then.) Not that I'd hurt them by removing their link, but that's not the point. I'm concerned about people who jump off links they find on my site, and where I'm sending them. And that's the way it should be, it should be about your readers and it should be about relationships. Not stats per se, stats per se mean little. The point of doing this sort of thing, I believe, is simply in doing it well. All else should flow from that.