Jennifer Liberto's Salon article on MWO has the wrong angle for the story. She emphasizes two aspects -- the anonymity and therefore unaccountability of the site, and the site's occasionally email campaigns.
The anonymity angle makes it a mystery story and hints at deeper forces at work, as well as somehow questioning its legitimacy. The unaccountability spin is both irrelevant and false. What type of accountability is Liberto referring to? This is never made clear. Is it financial accountability - to customers and owners? We know that doesn't necessarily make for good media. That is part of the site's premise, in any case -- they're called whores for a reason. Besides, many many political publications either are known to or are rumored to lose oodles of cash (despite Mickey Kaus's pathological obsession, this phenomenon is not limited to the The American Prospect but is true of most conservative political publications as well, which would not survive without the deep pockets of its supporters.) Accountable to its critics? Well, MWO is as accountable to them as anyone. Accountable to its readers? As any MWO reader knows, emailing mwo@mediawhoresonline.com will often get you a response. Accountable to the Washington Beltway Cocktail Party Circuit? In the end, that is probably what she meant.
Full disclosure here: I am a long time reader and occasional contributor along with a lot of readers. But, contrary to the suspicions of a certain editor of a certain conservative publication, I have no inside knowledge of the inner workings of the site. My own belief is that people can play the "guessing game" all they want about who is behind MWO, but they're going to be severely disappointed in the end. It is possible to do what they do without being an "insider." In fact, rather more possible I would argue - what insider would have the time?
As for MWO's email campaigns, they are actually relatively few and far between. And, when they do call for them they are not simply because some journalist said a bad thing about Bill Clinton, but for more extreme whorish behavior. They didn't invent email campaigns.
Liberto fails completely to address the substance of anything posted on MWO's web site. She fails to attack the validity of anything they have written. Though she raises nebulous questions about their reliability due to their partisanship and anonymity (rumor is Solitary, Nasty, and Short write the words while Brutish takes care of the graphics), as most of what they do is to critique mainstream media it is difficult to know how they are unreliable factually. They aren't the first partisan magazine or e-zine to come down the road.
Some have seen Liberto's article as a hit piece. It may have been, but it was a pretty piss poor hit piece. I thought it was mostly just ignorant gossip-column style writing that qualifies as journalism these days. I hope Salon didn't pay too much for it.
UPDATE: I just noticed that the always fabulous Tamara Baker has a piece about this, which includes this quote from Maia Cowan, who was interviewed, but essentially ignored, by Liberto:
One of the most important moments of my life occurred years ago when I realized that how defensive I felt when somebody criticized me was directly proportional to the validity of the criticism.
Pity the mediawhores never had that Moment of Truth. They'd be better reporters for it.
In a world where Howie Kurtz's weekly suckfest Reliable Sources is what qualifies as media criticism, this comment is dead on.
