On top of
that, reviews of Anderson's book have been popping up all over
cyberspace, from the pages of The Wall Street Journal
(here
and here)
to The
American Enterprise to web-zines like TechCentralStation
to individual bloggers from all walks of life (see here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
and here
for starters).
What's more,
the string of publicity for South Park Conservatives
isn't likely to stop any time soon. Anderson says he's working
through several more Q&A's with bloggers and that there's
"no end in sight" to the schedule of talk radio interviews.
This is all
as it should be, because Anderson is now living proof of one of
the central arguments of his book: conservatives today are able
to reach the public in much greater numbers than ever before thanks
to the growth of "new media" outlets like talk radio,
Fox News, right-leaning book publishers and the blogosphere.
After an
appearance last week on The
O'Reilly Factor (now the top rated show in all of cable
news) sent the book zooming up to number seven on Amazon.com's
non-fiction best-seller list, South Park Conservatives
currently sits at number twenty-nine and is in the top 150 titles
carried by Amazon overall.
Pretty impressive
numbers, given that South Park Conservatives has received
close to zero attention in traditional "mainstream"
media outlets - notwithstanding Frank
Rich's rather fatuous critique in The New York Times
the other day.
The reality
is that ten years ago Anderson's book probably wouldn't have been
published at all. If by some chance South Park Conservatives
had made it into print back then, given the ossified structure
of the liberal-leaning media establishment the chances of anyone
hearing about the book were close to nil.
Not anymore.
Thanks to previous best sellers by Coulter,
O'Reilly,
Hannity,
The
Swift Boat Vets and others, publishers are clamoring for more
and more conservative titles. A critical component to the success
of these books is that publishers are now able to market them
effectively without the help of the MSM. Authors like Anderson
can do a pretty darn good job of selling books without ever appearing
on The Today Show or being in the New York Times
Review of Books.
The fact
Frank Rich is aware of South Park Conservatives - and
that he felt compelled to devote 1,511 words in a Sunday column
to try and rebut some of the book's arguments - only serves to
confirm the truth of Anderson's thesis.
The journey
started back in late 2003 when Anderson, a senior editor at City
Journal, the house organ of The
Manhattan Institute, published an
essay arguing that conservatives were finally making some
headway against liberals in the culture wars.
In addition
to outlining the seismic shift in the media landscape created
by cable news (specifically Fox News) and the Internet, Anderson
drew on the popularity of the foulmouthed fourth graders from
the animated comedy series South Park to illustrate some
important characteristics about consumers of new media: they are
young, predominantly male, and they take great glee in seeing
the sacred cows of liberal political correctness led to slaughter
week after week.
Put another
way, Anderson observed that one of the most coveted demographics
for advertisers and publishers alike in the new media age is significantly
more conservative than many had been led to believe.
The reaction
to the essay, according to Anderson, was "incredible."
The piece generated more feedback than almost any other in City
Journal's 15-year history. Within two months Anderson had
signed on with Regnery
to expand the 7,100-word essay into a book. He then spent the
next year researching and rounding out the profile of the "South
Park Conservative" by interviewing more than a hundred college
students, bloggers, and new media professionals.
It should
come as no surprise that the finished product has been every bit
as well received as the original article. Yet when I spoke with
Anderson last week he seemed genuinely shocked by the sheer volume
of publicity South Park Conservatives has generated -
almost exclusively through new media.
It's a fitting
piece of irony: if Anderson can author a book about the rise of
new media and a new brand of conservatism and still be surprised
by experiencing its power first hand, then perhaps the revolt
against liberal media bias is bigger and has more profound consequences
than any of us can imagine. - T. Bevan 9:15 am Link
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Monday,
May 2 2005
BOB HERBERT SLANDERS OUR TROOPS: I was born in
1969 so I don't have any real memories of the Vietnam era, but
I always found it hard to believe that American citizens would
actually have spit on our troops returning home from Vietnam in
the early '70's. In my mind at least, the idea of disrespecting
the men and women who fight for our freedom is so despicable and
beyond the pale it makes you wonder what kind of person would
actually stoop that low.
Now I know.
Go read Bob
Herbert in today's New York Times. Read the
whole thing. I'm embarrassed and sickened that this garbage is
spewed forth to the entire world as the modus operandi of the
American military. Herbert reprints the unproven accusations of
a left-wing conscientious objector without even one qualifier
that these "incidents" shouldn't be taken as reflective
of the behavior of the honorable men and women serving in Iraq.
Instead,
Herbert uses his position as a columnist in one of the most widely
read and influential papers in the world to parrot as fact the
slanderous assertion that "gratuitous violence...is routinely
inflicted by American soldiers on ordinary Iraqis."
As hard as it is for some of us to believe, Herbert does this
because his sole objective IS to disparage, to tarnish and to
tear down the U.S. military. J. McIntyre 9:03 am Link
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