Bloggasm

David Neiwert is a freelance journalist based in Seattle. He is the author of Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community (Palgrave/St. Martin’s Press, June 2005), as well as Death on the Fourth of July: The Story of a Killing, a Trial, and Hate Crime in America, (Palgrave/St. Martin’s, 2004), and In God’s Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest (1999, WSU Press). His reportage for MSNBC.com on domestic terrorism won the National Press Club Award for Distinguished Online Journalism in 2000. His freelance work can be found at Salon.com, the Washington Post, MSNBC and various other publications.

Simon Owens: Which conservative bloggers do you think create the most spin? And if you had to pick a conservative blogger to label a worthy adversary, which blogger would that be?

David Neiwert: Most spin? If by “most spin” you mean “most mendacious,” I’d say Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin, with Hugh Hewitt a close third. And though he doesn’t rank with them, Dean Esmay is in a class to himself when it comes to dishonesty.

I’ve really only seen two conservative bloggers who I think, for the most part, argue honestly: Tacitus and John Cole. For that reason I also consider them the most worthy adversaries.

SO: In a world where anyone with an extra five minutes can set up a political blog, how does one go about figuring out which bloggers to pick a fight with and which ones just aren’t worth your time?

DN: My criteria for fight-picking is based on my own internal gauge for the harm inflicted by the misinformation I’m typically confronting when I write such a post. In some cases, someone with a megaphone will attract my ire just because the Newspeak they’re spreading reaches so many people; in other instances, the depths of the ugliness or viciousness of a lesser blogger might set me off. It tends to depend on the posts in question.

SO: Do you think that liberal political blogs help improve America’s image to foreigners in that they show there is a very large percentage of the population that disagrees with the president?

DN: Sure. I think any kind of progressive grass-roots activism performs the same function. Though I would never say that’s a reason to blog at all, or even is close to the most important function of liberal blogs in the course of our discourse.

SO: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

DN: Eschaton. Firedoglake. Jesus’ General. James Wolcott. Digby. On days when I can’t scan the blogs I still read them.

You can read Orcinus over here