It would be tempting simply to dismiss the mad rush by the New York Times, the Washington Post and other liberal media outlets to get their hands on those 24,000-plus emails that Sarah Palin wrote while she was governor of Alaska. Clearly, there was a “gotcha” expectation among journalists poring over the Palin messages. They thought they would find damaging new revelations about the woman who, for good or ill, has become in less than four years one of the most controversial figures in American politics. That nothing of note has yet emerged tells us that something other than sound news judgment drives the reporting agenda in too many newsrooms. Multiple lessons should be drawn from this episode. First, there is lamentable confusion among conservatives who criticized the media for demanding the emails and inviting their readers to assist in going through them. This is called “crowdsourcing,” and it is a valuable new tool made possible by the Internet for increasing government transparency and accountability. Conservatives should embrace crowdsourcing and put it to good use or risk being left behind on the technology front.
Second, too many media outlets that went wild over the Palin emails have not devoted anywhere near as much passion, energy and resources to holding President Obama accountable on the pledge he made on his first day in the Oval Office — that he would run the most transparent administration ever. The list of Obama transparency outrages is a long one, but it has received only sporadic coverage in most precincts of the mainstream media.
