Piehowski has vowed to reject blogs who are too harsh and to lay down the law on irresponsible blogging:

Now, being a blogger with a worldwide audience also comes with a lot of responsibility. We’ve all heard at least one story about a blogger who has misled, misrepresented or flat-out lied on their blog.

Simply put, there’s a lot of garbage in the blogosphere and I won’t hesitate to call out a Minnesotan who blogs recklessly.

The people-powered media revolution is knocking at our door, friends. It’s time to peak between the curtains.

That, of course, led to harsh criticism from bloggers. A Blue Stem Prairie’s Ollie Ox:

MinnPost has hired a blog nanny to watch over those of us who presumed to set up blogs without asking permission. Yes, gentle readers, the Blog Cabin is here to award gold stars to those nice people who fit the rules of high-quality journalism and to take naughty posters out to the blog woodshed.

In the upcoming weeks we’ll find out which Minnesota bloggers make the cut and which ones will be shamed into blogger obscurity.

That brought a charge of bias from blogger Michael Brodkorb (who has worked for GOP candidates and is reportedly weighing a run for a top party office). And so an online battle was waged today, a sideshow to the recount drama or perhaps a warm-up for tonight’s big rematch between Franken and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman on Political Championship Wrestling.

UPDATE: Braublog has this statement from the Franken folks: “Media is welcome to broadcast or stream live outside Franken for Senate headquarters, but in an effort to preserve the operational integrity of our workplace, footage inside Franken for Senate headquarters is generally not available for live streaming or live broadcast. Exceptions will be considered and granted at the discretion of the campaign.”

Here’s a play-by-play of events over the last two days in the words of the players themselves, mostly from the recount liveblog at The Uptake unless otherwise noted.

MONDAY

12:34 Mike McIntee: We will have a video from the Franken presser up soon

12:50 Jason Barnett: We are playing back a news conference that happened about 40 minutes ago at Franken Campaign Headquarters-

TUESDAY

10:12 Mike McIntee: Chuck Olsen will be covering the presser at 11:30am today. The reason given for not live streaming is they believe the Coleman campaign watches it and then tailors it’s news conference to respond to what the Franken campaign says. I think it’s a silly restriction, but since it is being applied to all media, we’re abiding. Checking on the Monday press conference. We had technical problems so it may not be up in You Tube or Blip yet.

10:21 Mike McIntee: While we find the restriction silly, the Coleman Campaign’s refusal to even let us in the building to cover its news conference is terribly disturbing.

11:07 Noah Kunin: The Coleman Campaign has never formally explained why we are banned from campaign press conferences, nor formally explained why their campaign does not answer our questions during press conferences at the Capitol (despite repeated requests for an explanation)

11:09 Noah Kunin: Coleman’s campaign has allowed us access into official events in Coleman’s capacity as Senator on a regular basis and answers our questions during those events, even if it is the Senator himself answering those questions. In fact, during the last event, the Senator took the time to single us out for our relevant and probing questions.

11:12 Noah Kunin: Since the Senate office recogonizes us as press, why the Campaign office blackout? There are multiple reasons I think. The most important aspect of this “relationship” though is their attempt to create their own reality. By blocking reasoanble access to their campaign, they make us seem more like a DFL-only media mouthpiece, which in turn then becomes the unspoken basis of the original blackout, transposed into the past.

11:44 Mike McIntee: Next “big thing” today is the Franken press conference which is happening right now. We are not able to live stream today, but will have it for playback shortly after it ends.

11:44 Mike McIntee: To clarify… that’s the Franken campaign… not the candidate himself.

11:50 chuckumentary: Franken campaign says 84 votes separate them from Coleman (using FrankenMath) #mnrecount

11:51 Mike McIntee: Chuck Olsen (Chuckumentary) is at the Franken news conference. He will feed us the raw video once it is over and he can get to a place with internet connections.

11:52 chuckumentary: Franken has received rejected absentee lists (all or in part) from 66 counties, 6400 rejected ballots so far #mnrecount

11:54 chuckumentary: MPLS had a number of rejected ballots due to admin error inc. registration – SOS own database shows voter was registered #mnrecount

11:55 chuckumentary: Itasca county rejected an absentee because “we screwed up” and put in reject pile #mnrecount

11:58 theuptake: Franken campaign says 84 votes separate them from Coleman (using FrankenMath) #mnrecount

11:58 chuckumentary: Lost ballots total “in the hundreds” – visual evidence of uncounted ballot http://twitpic.com/nzfb ballot stuck in machine #mnrecount

1:42 Chuckumentary: At last, here is part 1 of Franken press conf. from today

2:19 THE UPTAKE COMPLIES WITH GAG ORDER REQUEST FROM TEAM FRANKEN
By Michael B. Brodkorb | November 25, 2008
According to public comments made today by The UpTake’s Mike McIntee, Team Franken requested that the UpTake (and actual media outlets) no longer provide live video of their press conferences. While WCCO-TV did a live shot from Team Franken’s headquarters, The UpTake complied with gag order request and didn’t provide live video of Team Franken’s 11:30 a.m. press conference. Team Franken was apparently concerned about outside groups seeing their press conference live, so The Uptake buried the live feed. No credible media outlet would accept the terms issued by Team Franken, but since The UpTake isn’t a credible media outlet, or even a media outlet, they complied. Where’s the angry video from The UpTake expressing outrage at Team Franken’s instructions? I wouldn’t expect to see any credible outrage from this so-called band of “citizen journalists.”

2:28 dbrauer: Blog fight! @mbrodkorb is all up in @theuptake’s junk: http://is.gd/901B

2:32 Chuckumentary: we’ve been Brodkorb’d!

Responses to “THE UPTAKE COMPLIES WITH GAG ORDER REQUEST FROM TEAM FRANKEN”

2:35 haha Says: Cool! So, will you take them with you to the next Norm conference? I notice they’re not putting up any Coleman tape at all.

2:36 Ralph Kramden Says: Hey Michael – can you get the Coleman campaign to allow TheUptake to have access to their pressers, if TheUptake agrees to the same restrictions?

2:37 Jeff Rosenberg Says: Hypocrisy, thy party is GOP. Let me get this straight: The UpTake isn’t allowed to broadcast video from Coleman press conferences. But you’re upset that they didn’t broadcast video from the Franken press conference. Until the Coleman campaign will allow video from their press conferences, I don’t see what your problem is.

2:46 Danno Says: Gag order? So, you’re saying that the Uptake, putting up video of the Franken press conference after the conference is over, is a gag order? So, what do you call the complete denial of entry to the Coleman headquarters? Banishment? Terrorism? 

2:59 Jason DeRusha Says: I understand that the purpose of this site is to expose the practices of Democrats, not Republicans. But in fairness, how do you not acknowledge that the Coleman campaign has refused to allow The UpTake access to its news conferences? I’d be curious why the Franken campaign wanted no live streaming… especially considering The UpTake still aired the entire thing, just on a delay.

3:01 Chuck Olsen Says: Michael, Some fact-correction for you. The UpTake, much like C-SPAN, provides live unfiltered coverage of political events in Minnesota as our resources allow, including press conferences and debates. You’ve highly praised us for providing this service in the past, face-to-face with me and on-camera. We made it clear to the Franken campaign that we would not abide by a ban on live streaming of their press conferences unless it was an across-to-board restriction applicable to all press. They issued a statement to that effect. The WCCO live shot you refer to taken *outside* Franken HQ as you see here:
http://wcco.com/election/missing.ballots.found.2.873776.html
The UpTake is free to do the same thing, but it has little value. Instead, we live-twitter from the press conference and are the first to get that information to the public. In the case of Coleman’s campaign, we and MN Independent are being singled out while other press and citizen journalists like yourself are allowed to cover the event. This is a disservice to Minnesota, and unethical. We’d love to provide live unfiltered coverage of Coleman press conferences, or even taped unfiltered coverage. I’m disappointed at the way you’ve characterized this and it seems to go against what you’ve said in the past.

2:42 Mike McIntee: And Mr. Brodkorb, as usual, reports facts selectively, without making any phone calls to confirm anything and apparently doesn’t know the difference between a “live shot” in a newscast vs. a continuous live feed. We’ll chairitably chalk this up to his non-journalism/media background. The UpTake is treating the Franken restrction on live streaming like an embargo and will choose to deal with the restrictions on a case by case basis. We’ve been told the restriction has been applied equally to all media. Knowing that the restriction would likely be in place today we diverted our live streaming card to another location.

2:48 Chuckumentary: Yes, I consider MDE a citizen journalist and should be allowed into a Franken press event. The UpTake is a non-profit journalism organization, no question we are press regardless of political views.

Both issues hit the fan Wednesday at the Public Safety and Regulatory Services Committee meeting. Gordon (pictured) appeared exasperated at Remington’s full-throated fulminations on the threat of one protest group “bum-rushing” another during the Republican National Convention — unless the city starts granting permits making one group’s occupancy of public space official and enforceable. Thursday, within hours of a Minnesota Monitor mention of Garwood’s post, three or four negative responses on City Hall’s third floor had Gordon removing the post from his Blogger site, because, he tells the Minnesota Monitor, “I value my relationship with my colleagues.”

Whatever the future holds for the 2nd Ward blog following what Gordon terms its “first and biggest burp,” the Web site’s difficult birth is documented in early entries at the blog itself. Gordon — the council’s lone Green Party member, who came into office in 2006 on promises of greater openness and novel forms of constituent interactivity via the Internet — writes that he expected setting up a blog would be easy: “Someone on the Council must already be blogging, I thought. Some system must exist. Wrong.” Four months went by before his colleagues and the city attorney’s office signed off on an arm’s-length blog that could never be linked or even mentioned on official city Web pages. A required disclaimer promises a tight rein on expression. Perhaps it’s no surprise that, even as the online world explodes around them, no other council members have attempted anything like it.

Continued: Click “Read More”Citizens who were grateful to be addressed as adults by Barack Obama in his speech on race in America will find Gordon’s blog — with its long, reasoned analyses and frank assessments of political reality — good reading. Two years of blogging has created a parallel public record of Gordon’s service, a record that’s much more extensive, accessible and intimate than the narrative to be extracted from annotated agendas, video logs and newsletter pabulum.

An example: Using the search function on Gordon’s blog can quickly tell the tale of his working relationship with Remington. The two have agreed on a long list of issues, many of which fit the “progressive” agenda: voting reform, tenants’ rights, civilian police review, condo conversions, an animal circus ban and new regulations on heat in rental housing, as well as extramural items such as opposition to the Big Stone II coal plant and support for a federal Department of Peace. An earlier split (in which Remington also joined Ostrow) over a proposed ordinance on aggressive panhandling is also there for the world to read, in serial form.

Gordon’s direct approach, as it appears in black and white (and green, appropriately) at his blog, can shock even working journalists who daily fish for dish about pols and their views. His online take on a proposed alley ordinance in 2006 seemed to take aback the Strib’s Terry Collins, who labeled it “a harsh blog post” for its argument “that the ordinance will be used as ’selective enforcement’ mainly against the homeless, poor, those with mental issues and minority group members.”

It reminds me of a dream I had over the weekend. Someone had drawn a bikini on John McCain in magic marker. But it wasn’t really John McCain. It was Charlton Heston. And it wasn’t really markers on his body. It was Astroturf. And he was saying something about prying a gun from his cold, dead hands. And then I woke up.

But there’s one segment of the Republican right where McCain has fared much better, as Stephen Dinan of The Washington Times wrote earlier this week — the bloggers, with whom McCain or his surrogates have chatted regularly via conference call:

[Official McCain website blogger Patrick]  Hynes said the back-and-forth with bloggers took ‘a great deal of sting out of the criticisms’ over immigration, Mr. McCain’s push for campaign-finance changes and other areas where conservatives have registered their discontent with the senator, who has secured enough delegates to win the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

“‘It gave him a microphone when others had already left the building,’ said David All, one of the Republicans’ Web pioneers who runs SlateCard.com and who said Mr. McCain has benefited from Mr. Hynes’ ties to bloggers. ‘That very much symbolizes the role of bloggers: We don’t have editors to report to, and there isn’t a big meeting with editors every morning. What that comes down to is personal relationships.’”

McCain has gotten good mileage out of these calls, as these posts at Captain’s Quarters,  Townhall and Race42008 attest.

Her bill and public statements in support of the bill have generated a healthy amount of blog discussion. At the Sherburne County Republican Convention, Bachmann said: “By 2012, incandescent light bulbs will be no more. Fluorescent bulbs are more polluting because of their mercury content. We are working on the light bulb bill. If the Democrats can hose up a light bulb don’t trust them with the country.” 

She also told the Star Tribune: “I was just outraged that Congress would want to substitute its judgment for the judgment of the American people. It struck me as a massive Big Brother intrusion into our homes and our lives.”

After the jump, read reactions from Bachmann supporters and detractors.

Continued: Click “Read more”Zach at MNPublius wrote:

Apparently, Bachmann is fine with Big Brother poking his head into the bedrooms of gay people, but he better stay away from their light fixtures. Put it another way, Bachmann thinks that homosexuals have a right to incandescent light bulbs, but don’t have a right to be free from discrimination in the workplace.

Andy Aplikowski of Residual Forces wrote:

In case you didn’t know, the recent energy bill has put the incandescent light bulb on the endangered species list and will ban the sale of them altogether in the very near future. Bachmann opposed the social engineering Energy bill which actually created no new energy and, in fact, was designed to make it harder and more expensive to get reliable and abundant energy…. Unfortunately she is the only person who represents me in Washington DC who has a clue on how to lower energy prices and the courage to stand up to the environmental special interests.

Dave Mindeman of mnpACT:

The incandescent light bulb has its champion. … and her name is Michele Bachmann. With a Bible in one hand and an autographed picture of Sen. James Inhofe in the other, Rep. Bachmann will fight for your right to increased wattage. With God on her side, (as she always is), and the oil lobby cheering her on, Michele Bachmann will carry, and fight for, this important, right affirming, legislation through the hallowed halls of Congress run by those godless Democrats.

When he realized “everyone in the Twin Cities missed this story,” he did more digging. By the time the Star Tribune got wind of Target’s practice, Kohler had a pretty good overview, which he shared with reporter Jackie Crosby when she called. He got the impression Crosby wasn’t very web savvy, so he pointed out his sources and suggested she get in touch with 21-year-old University of Georgia senior Rosie Siman, who first revealed that Target advised Facebook members to “keep [their work as Rounders] like a secret,” by either emailing her using her Flickr profile or leaving a comment on her blog.

When the Star Tribune published its story, headlined “Bloggers seeing red over Target’s little secret,” the whole tale was laid out, but with one missing detail. The role of Kohler and his blog The Deets.

On Saturday, he wrote:

Come on, Jackie. You called me about this on Thursday afternoon. We discussed the story, I pointed you to sources where you could find more info, including the email of one of the sources you quote. You told me you’d mention The Deets in the article.

It’s fun to see the story get some more attention, but it comes across as rude to be snubbed like this. Why should I answer the phone when the next time the Star Tribune calls?

It is odd. Given the Strib’s vaunted “local-local” approach to journalism, why not cite Kohler? And given the topic — bloggers irked over Target’s obfuscation about online relationships — why not be upfront about how the story came in? After all, without Kohler’s post, Crosby wouldn’t have had a story at all.

Crosby hasn’t responded yet to my email, but she did leave a comment on Kohler’s blog, blaming print journalism’s limited newshole: “If I’d had one more paragraph I would have shown readers the path it took to come to my attention.”

She continued:

To be fair, I did credit the original source of the flap: The teacher from the University of Georgia. She put it out there. The bloggers, including you, just linked to her work… Reporters talk to people all the time who don’t get quoted every time we write stories. (And, I’m quite sure I didn’t promise that you would be quoted.)

“While I ‘just linked,’ all she did was ‘just rewrote’ a story that was already written with a couple fresh quotes,” Kohler wrote me in an email. “Nothing wrong with that, but it’s nothing different from what I do.”

Should the story of Kohler’s help — above and beyond the call of duty, if you ask me –and Crosby’s failure to credit him spread across the blogosphere, the reporter’s lede might come true.

Only it’ll be Crosby, and not Target, who “is learning the hard way that life in the blogosphere can put you right in the bullseye.”

In its final post, the site said Hoffman “has rained both legal and vaguely physical threats on our source,” and added that the decision to stop publishing was made after “folks with no connection to this blog are named in a comments section.”

The site has criticized Hoffman’s writing, professional demeanor, and editorial style, while also veering into more personal areas: his marriage, choice of tattoos, and personal appearance. Asked to comment on AltWeeklyDeathwatch’s shutdown, he said, “No, I’m not going to comment on that site.”

Some gratitude: Aiming to get a little more mileage out of his “Best Locally Generated Blog (Right Wing)” nod in City Pages’ Best of the Twin Cities issue, Dan Lacey is trying to auction the award off on eBay. “Very few people are impressed that I won it, and the strangers I’ve talked to about it don’t know what a blog is,” he wrote at Faithmouse. “A number of fellow conservative blogs are suspicious of me simply for having been awarded the honor, and left-wing blogs won’t acknowledge my presence. Therefore I believe a fellow established or would-be blogger may be able to put the award to better use than myself.” The gag: his starting bid for his hand-drawn facsimile of the certificate — which includes an art-brut-ish “I am the shit” faux ribbon — is $666.

Press freedoms decline globally: It’s World Press Freedom Day, and according to the report “Freedom of the Press 2007: A Global Survey of Media Independence,” free expression continued its global decline last year, with only 18 percent of citizens living in countries with free presses. The United States tied for 16th out of 195 countries, a slight uptick from last year.

“Although the United States continues to be one of the better performers in the survey,” the report said, “there were continuing problems in the legal sphere, particularly concerning cases in which legal authorities tried to compel journalists to reveal confidential sources or provide access to research material in the course of criminal investigations.” (See the cases of Dan Nienaber in Mankato and Josh Wolf in San Francisco.) Areas that saw the greatest declines in freedom include Latin America (where violence against journalism has spiked and rulers like Hugo Chavez have restricted rights), Southern Asia (due to coups and states of emergency in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Fiji), and China (where internet censorship is high and there’s been a crackdown against “cyberdissidents“).

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I have been far too quiet on these pages. Between teaching 215 students about film, refereeing far more soccer games than my left knee wants to allow, trying to rewrite a screenplay before a writing partner pitches it in Hollywood, celebrating a birthday and more