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Commentary by TrueDialog.org's Founder, Carl Lindemann October 11 - Collins Victimized Yet Again? It seems that Senator Collins is the constant victim of inappropriate attacks, investigations, and now - censorship! However, the "story" being touted by the Collins campaign has some serious problems in terms of journalistic integrity. Here's what Collins campaign operative Lance Dutson has posted on his site pumping this tale: Robert Cox has a piece in today’s Examiner about Google’s restriction of ads I tried to place with them on behalf of the Collins for Senator campaign...This story is currently #1 on the Examiner’s ‘most popular’ list across the country. It has been linked by the Drudge Report, Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, Right Voices, and many other blogs. Now, you might get the mistaken impression from this that some serious news organization had broken a news story. However, Robert Cox is not a reporter. He's a conservative columnist who has published an opinion piece in a conservative publication that is written up to ape the style of a news story. Cox is also the founder and president of the Media Bloggers Association, a trade group/club for bloggers. As it happens, the legal opinion offered in his pseudo-news story is provided by "Ronald Coleman, a lawyer and leading expert on online intellectual property dispute." After Coleman's opinion, Cox notes as an aside that "Coleman is also general counsel for the Media Bloggers Association." So what? Cox reaches out to his organization's general counsel for a quote. But he leaves out something that might be of interest to his readers - Collins' campaign operative at the center of this "story" happens to have significant ties to the Media Bloggers Association: Lance (Dutson) is a board member of the Media Bloggers Association, a non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting MBA members and their blogs, educating bloggers, and promoting the explosion of citizen’s media. Dutson was featured on a recent panel on blogs and legal issues at the Media Giraffe Summit at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, along with several attorneys and MBA President and Founder, Robert Cox. Dutson developed the new MBA website, and continues to work on new intitiatives through the site with fellow MBA members. He was one of several MBA members to gain credentials to cover the US vs Libby trial, the first time bloggers have been credentialed to cover a Federal court case. Dutson also worked with the Associated Press to deliver the aggregated feed of MBA coverage to over 750 AP partner websites. Unfortunately, Cox failed to disclose his relationship with the principle subject of his column. The Media Bloggers Association mission claims that it is in the business of: ...supporting the development of "blogging" or "citizen journalism" as a distinct form of media; and helping to extend the power of the press, with all the rights and responsibilities that entails, to every citizen. It seems clear that Cox has failed to fulfill the journalist's responsibility to disclose such a conflict of interest. Did Dutson feed him the story, too? Meanwhile, Dutson is out promoting the "story" for the Collins campaign without any concern over credibility. More later - we'll examine The Examiner and see how this pseudo news story gets passed along. *** The Wages of Spin Project Spin Shop Ideas & Essays Spin Shops, State by State
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