Hoystory

…or lack thereof. I found it curious over the past couple of days as the blogosphere and talk radio pointed out vice presidential debate moderator Gwen Ifill’s conflict of interest that the major sites devoted to journalism mentioned little about the controversy.

Editor & Publisher relegated the issue to a brief mention on its E&P Pub blog. Its main site features such hard-hitting items as “Washingtonpost.com Traffic Spikes 42% in September,” but not Ifill.

The Columbia Journalism Review Wednesday posted on the issue, giving cover to all of us hysterical conservatives.

Conflict of interest is often about appearances. There appears, to us, to be a conflict in Ifill moderating tomorrow night’s vice presidential debate.

Exactly.

Finally and most curiously, Romenesko’s Media News over at Poynter.org didn’t have mention of the story in its main listing or “other links” sidebar until late this afternoon — and only then to link to a lukewarm piece by PBS ombudsman Michael Getler saying that the issue of Ifill’s book should’ve been brought up sooner.

I’ve been reading Romenesko for years and typically the vast majority of his posts are to mainstream media organizations reporting on themselves or others. More recently, I’ve seen links to blogs at publications like Mother Jones, The Atlantic, and The New Republic pretty regularly. I see comparatively little (read: next to none) linking to blogs at National Review, The Weekly Standard or Commentary Magazine.

This anonymous e-mail posted the other day by the Instapundit appears to be increasingly true.

“Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working.”