Sins of Omission I: Cambodia

I've long known that media partisanship expresses itself not merely by what's reported, but by what is omitted. That's true of the ongoing story of Kerry's Christmas-in-Cambodia, which has been ignored by the Washington Post and New York Times but covered by the conservative press, talk radio, and the blogosphere. Willful ignorance has always been practiced by the elite media, but it's more obvious now thanks to the new sources noted above, and because it's more brazenly partisan than it's been in many decades. The era of supposed objectivity among big media journalists isn't just coming to a close, it has ended. We entered a new era of an openly partisan media some time back -- it's just that many of the bigger players have yet to admit it.

I don't see this return to partisanship as a bad thing. In fact, it's the norm in modern journalism, by which I mean the newspaper business as it developed from the nineteenth-century onward. What it really signals, though, is the end to liberalism's hegemony in the news business (which I commented on here and here. Talk radio alone indicates this, and the preponderance of conservatives on the airways demonstrates not conspiracy by right-wingers, but the lack of market demand for a liberal alternative.

Bloggers who're following the Cambodia story closely include Instapundit, Patterico (via Instapundit), Hugh Hewit, and the Captain's Quarters.

All of these souces attack the front-page hit-piece by the Times this morning that attempts to destroy the credibility of the swiftboat veterans who've questioned Kerry's credibility. I'd say that the Texan who supported the swifties' efforts got his money's worth, especially compared to the lack of effectiveness of George Soros's millions to support Kerry.