Tuesday, January 30, 2007

NewsBusters Vs DailyKos

To be precise its Mike Stark (contributor for Daily Kos and blogger behind Calling All Wingnuts) Versus Noel Sheppard (contributing editor of NewsBusters)

The issue they are debating over is that of little known blogger Spocko and his campaign to alert advertisers of a San Fransisco Radio station of the content their ads are being assosciated with. The Radio Station in question is KFSO, broadcaster of APF pundits Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin. In particular contention however were conservative personalities Melanie Morgan, Lee Rodgers, and Tom Benner of the drive-time “Morning Show". Spocko was writing complaint letters to KFSO advertisers with short transcripts and audio clips of contentious segments. It's been reported that KFSO have lost large sponsors such as Bank of America and MasterCard, though the anchors claim they’ve only lost one. One thing we know is that this is big news on the blogs.

The big news on this blog isn't KFSO, Melanie Morgan or the rise of a once little known blogger. Its the cross-over of pundits representing two of the biggest ideological blogs, Newsbusters (right) and DailyKos (left). Both have sanctioned a debate where they can ask and must answer 5 questions provided by their counterpart. WOW!!!!!

I can't reference an equivalent wrestling scenario that actually happened, but its straight out of the wrestling playbook. The closest I can come up with is when Shane McMahon, son of WWE owner Vince McMahon bought out competitor WCW to upstage his dad. This started an 'Invasion' angle where there was a cross over of wrestlers from both federations. Despite the fact its a laboured analogy, its deceiving because every discerning fan knew that WWE had bought out WCW beforehand. Rather than two dominant parties momentarily putting differences aside and joining forces, it was actually a powerful party devouring an ailing one. To be fair its an unlikely proposition due to the cut-throat rivalries that exist in wrestling.

A better analogy is the Marvel/DC crossover. A 1997 comic mini series by the two behemoths of the comic world DC and Marvel. Our favorite heroes did battle with hitherto unseen heroes from the rival universe. Winners were chosen through fan popularity - hey not unlike wrestling. Capcom Vs SNK is another analogy i can think of, this time in the Video gaming world.

Its encouraging to see that in politics, it is possible to break bread. I'm glad this is one case where Wrestling was unlike politics.

"Finally, we can do more of this – cross-pollination between blogs of differing ideology. As long as there are almost exclusively liberal and conservative blogs blaming all of the problems in the world on each other, we’ll never see a more civil political discourse." Noel Sheppard, NewsBusters.org

The debate as viewed through the Newsbusters universe
The debate as viewed through the DailyKos universe

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