I appeared this morning on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show for a segment with Ana Marie Cox of Wonkette and NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen of Pressthink. WNYC has archived the various segments of the show here. I won’t say that the show ruined my day, but I will admit that it wasn’t the highlight of it. After I appeared on the show this morning, Dennis Fox wrote:
Having just listened to [Big Trunk’s] contribution to the discussion of the nature of Blogs and their role in the national media on WNYC, I took a look at Powerline for the first time. I should have been tipped off by [Mr. Trunk’s] inability to keep from drooling his partisanship down his vest. Powerline looks good, but doesn’t hold any interest for anyone but the kind of person who likes to live in an echo chamber, constantly surrounded by the reverberations of his own limited mind.
I will admit that Brian Lehrer exuded a certain smugness mixed with cluelessness that rubbed me the wrong way, and that I let it bug me. Dennis Fox’s judgment of my participation in the show is probably not unfair. But I do wonder what motivates a person to write a message like that.
DEACON responds: Trunk, I won’t speculate as to motivation, but I think the message is animated by foolishness, or worse. One can read our site in order to hear one’s own opinions reinforced, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s likely that most people read most opinion journals and blogs for that purpose. But we know from our mail that many of our readers, while agreeing with our conservative views as a general matter, take issue with us on many specific issues. Moreover, non-conservatives can also read Power Line in order to sample the conservative viewpoint, and I know non-conservatives, especially younger ones, who do read it for that purpose.
I don’t know Mr. Fox. He may, in fact, be able to judge the value of our site to broad-minded non-partisans. But it seems more likely that he is judging it with the limited mind he purports to deplore. Based on the extent to which you agitated this fellow, I’m guessing that you did well on WNYC.
UPDATE by BIG TRUNK: Readers advise that the sound clip with the segment of the show that I appeared on either was not posted or has been removed.
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