Both [Newmark and O'Brien] check out a site called Memeorandum.com, which scans the blogosphere hourly to determine which news stories and opinion columns are generating the most Internet discussion. It is here, they both say, that the competing blogospheres, right and left, are most elegantly crystallized.
"It's fascinating," says Newmark.
"On a normal day, all the conservatives are blogging about one set of articles and all the liberals are blogging on another set," O'Brien adds. "Occasionally one piece gets everybody going, but most of the time we aren't commenting on the same things."
Memeorandum.com is fascinating, because it shows how our nation's competing realities are now formed. Bloggers scan for bits of evidence that fit into their existing views and then generalize from there. For example, supporters of the Iraq war will notice an article that seems to suggest some progress -- an insurgent leader captured, a new school opened -- and infer a universe of good news from that piece. Elsewhere on the same day, opponents of the war might find a piece of discouraging news -- an interview with a gloomy Iraqi leader, another suicide bombing -- and infer a mirror-image universe.
Ah, yes. I've noticed that. Memeorandum serves as a lesson to us bloggers, if we can stand to look at ourselves honestly.
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