What's Behind Fox News' Attacks on Bloggers?

The video embedded below, assembled by Brave New Films' Robert Greenwald, documents the increasingly vociferous attacks made by Fox News' spokespeople on Bloggers, particularly TheDailyKos.com.

I have no connection to DailyKos, other than the fact that I briefly met Markos Moulitsas Zúniga at Steve Gilliard's funeral. Nor do I have any desire to discuss politics on Ghost Sites: that's for other sites to take care of, and there are plenty of them, both left and right, which do a fine job of it.

What I will say is that contempt for "the Blogosphere" on the part of the Mainstream Media (AKA "MSM") is nothing new. A high level of hostility bordering on hysteria has been evident among journalists and representatives of analog networks for at least 10 years. The Web -- a truly insurgent, disruptive communications medium -- has been slowly sucking audiences and the ad dollars that follow them from old media for a long time, but it's only in the past year or so that the "pain point" has been reached. This is why these attacks are happening now.

Keep this in mind as you watch yesterday's world-striding pundits froth at the mouth about "hate speech on the Internet." You might love Bill O'Reilly or hate his guts, but you should understand that it's economics, not politics, that is the force driving these attacks and those to come.