MSM bigs aren't dealing well with the new normal-- being accountable and losing their nuclear monopoly is no fun. In the last six months, the MSM--so used to being on the other side of misery-- has lost two of its icons to conservative bloggers, and they're not happy about it.
Michelle Malkin is all over the MSM's bitchy response to Eason's fall. And Jeff Jarvis is requesting a sit-down with Times' editor Bill Keller.
Here's Jarvis on the nasty article on Easongate in today's Times:
This morning's story by Katharine Q. Seelye, Jacques Steinberg, and David F. Gallagher -- under the headline, "Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters" -- is another example of the disdain in which many quarters of The Times -- not all -- hold citizens' media.
This being The Times, many of the slaps are subtle. When they quote Edward Morrissey of Captains Quarter, who stayed on top of the Jordan story, they make a point of saying he is "a call center manager who lives near Minneapolis" Read: "He's not one of us. He's not a real journalist."
We are dealing with hubristic types who went to fancy schools and sit atop the media food chain at West 43rd Street in New York. Now they are having to answer to a call center manager from a suburb of Minneapolis-- they didn't sign on for that.
The MSM's last big score-- Watergate-- is now an ancient victory and the terms of Watergate are increasingly being co-opted by the Right.
In around twenty days, conservative bloggers were able to take Eason down -- that's a rapid kill.
The journalism of personal destruction will cut both ways from now on, and the formerly untouchable media bigs know it.