Liberal Blogs vs the Mainstream Media

The Mainstream Media has an interesting problem with the liberal bloggers like DailyKos, Atrios, MyDD, Matthew Yglesias, and Talking Points Memo. Liberal Bloggers like the admirable Glenn Greenwald savage the television networks, newsmagazine writers, newspaper reporters, and op-ed writers like Maureen Dowd and David Broder on a daily basis.

Even worse from the mainstream media (MSM's), Greenwald and the other liberal bloggers are almost always right. The MSM kowtows to the Bush administration and right-wingers like Matt Drudge, doesn't take Republican corruption or war critics seriously, was completely wrong about the war, and seems bent on taking a sneering personal posture toward Democratic politicians and presidential candidates.

But that's not the worst problem for the mainstream media. The worst problem is that they're in danger of losing their audience of politically-aware white liberals. I'm not sure of the ideological composition of the audience for the NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, or Newsweek and Time, but I bet it skews toward liberal whites and the rise of the liberal blogosphere has created competition for precisely that white liberal audience. The question is whether the MSM is going to do anything to keep its prosperous liberal audience. With Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, and Atrios developing into full-scale liberal news services that don't have to compromise with moderate and conservative views, the MSM might have to fight if they want liberals to continue paying attention.