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Meet Charles Johnson. He is a Web designer who lives in Los Angeles, and he used to keep a blog about bicycling. But something changed after Sept. 11 and he began to write his thoughts on terrorism and politics. Today he is making waves in the faceless cyberworld, where flame wars are waged, by making strong statements about hot-button issues. Johnson's political blog, Little Green Footballs, has fanned flames ever since he delved into the top-rated controversial issue: Israel. Whether visitors of his blog like what he says or not, one thing is clear: LGF has gained attention in both mainstream media and cyberspace. According to Technorati, a Web site that tracks blogs, Johnson's blog has been elevated to rank 45 in the blogosphere, and is viewed by more than 200,000 people each day. But his readers, self-proclaimed "lizardoids," aren't the subdued, quiet types. Some entries give a hat tip to readers, meaning it was a reader that gave Johnson the idea. And the comments section is a lively discussion; more than 3,000 comments pour in every day, and Little Green Footballs is linked to by 5,085 other blogs, as of Sept. 12, in 36,424 separate links. The popularity of Johnson's blog took off when he was one of the people to question the authenticity of the Killian documents, which were shown on 60 Minutes by Dan Rather as an authentic memo from George W. Bush's commanding officer which criticized his military service in the 1970s. Johnson produced an animation that compared the font of papers, and typography experts concluded the font was too modern for the paper's 1972 date. "And my Microsoft Word version, typed in 2004, is an exact match for the documents trumpeted by CBS News as 'authentic,'" Johnson wrote in a Sept. 9, 2004 entry. Johnson has continued to use his blog to question mainstream media. During the Israeli-Hezbollah war, Johnson exposed a widely used Reuters photograph of the Beruit skyline after an Israeli air attack as being severely altered with Photoshop. On Aug. 5, Johnson posted a Reuters photograph taken by stringer Adnan Hajj, and showed where the smoke pattern repeated itself, giving the false impression that there were billows of smoke over the city. The blog entry was quickly spread, and readership spiked after the controversy. Reuters pulled all of Hajj's photographs as a result and issued an apology. "What Johnson does with his blog is great; he uses the full spectrum of technology," said John Leonhardt, a junior Web developer with Cisco Systems, who is involved with several internal blogs at the company, and sees Johnson's blog as something to be desired. "It's what we should be doing with these sites," Leonhardt said. "Little Green Footballs has the following it does because Johnson is so effective with his words and proficient with the technology." But not everyone appreciates the sleek look of the blog, or cares for the content. Perhaps because of the nature of his blog- keeping an eye on mainstream media- Little Green Footballs has struck the wrong chord with some journalists. Eric Boehlert wrote in the opinion section of Yahoo! News that Johnson's blog "oozes disdain for Arabs and journalists" and is getting slammed in the media, even after effectively exposing the faked photographs, because Johnson is "obsessed with proving that all MSM reporting from Iraq and the Middle East is biased in favor of Islamic terrorists and therefore American news consumers aren't getting the 'truth' about either region." Whether Little Green Footballs is just fanning flames or using his blog pulpit to question coverage of heated issues, one thing is sure: he's leading the blog world to what it should be. Johnson takes full advantage of the technology. He posts graphics, audio and video. He links back to previous posts and other sites and blogs. He writes an entry at 3 a.m. All this from a man who used to write about his bicycling excursions. Related Links: Back to Orange Journalism Home Page Orange Journalism: |
