Another Annoying Panel

Over at Sean-Paul's place, I'm undersigned on a letter protesting The National Press Club's strange lineup for their upcoming "Blogger? Journalist?" event. Slated to discuss the issue are Wonkette, Congress Daily's John Stanton, and Jeff Gannon. Yeah, that Jeff Gannon.

It's such a laughably silly slate that you can't be mad, just amused. Nevertheless, in an event that bills itself as having bloggers and journalists attending to discuss what they are, you'd think they could add in a representative blogger or two. Ana Marie-Cox is not, so far as I can tell, a blogger anymore. I mean, maybe she is, but whenever I click over to Wonkette, which I rarely do, it seems someone else is writing the site. BoiFromTroy, or, right now, Greg Beato, or "Joe Klein" -- but not Cox. One of the defining traits of bloggers is that they, well, blog, and Cox doesn't seem to do that. I don't blame her, all these panels eat up the workday, but it's time for her to turn in the blog decoder ring and become a professional guest panelist if she's going to drop off her site and become ubiquitous at breakout sessions and buffet lines.

In addition, it's kinda weird to represent political blogs, which are overearnest, highly wonky things, with Cox. It'd be like using gossip-queen Liz Smith as the standard representative for political reporters. It'd embarrass the media, which is why it wouldn't happen and, I guess, why they use Wonkette to represent us -- we're eminently embarassable. But this time, at least, the jokes on the media. The guy they've chosen to accept as a legitimate halfway point between online media and respectable journalism is a partisan hack who sold his body by the hour. They could've picked Andrew Sullivan, Matt Yglesias, Josh Marshall, or any of the other blogger/writers who populate the net, but no, they chose the male prostitute and paired him with the blogger obsessed with anal penetration. Says something, doesn't it?