NP: The Rachel Maddow Show

One of the more patient news sources on the unrest in Iraq smacks down a rumor propagated by one that seems to just vomit up every thing that crosses his path:

Update | 2:07 p.m. Just to knock down a rumor spreading online, the BBC’s home page has been green for long before the color was adopted as a symbol of the Iranian opposition. The corporation did not change the color in sympathy with Mr. Moussavi’s campaign.

I don't want to get too down on what Sullivan is doing -- because yes, it's clearly important -- but he has a pretty long history of getting wrapped up emotionally in some subjects, and in doing so, loses quite a bit of objectivity. Earlier, he jumped to the conclusion that his site was under attack and not just straining under the weight of increased traffic. And I've seen him tout this as a feature, not a bug, of being a blogger, which makes my head hurt. This is not the transformational power of the Internet if it just increases the noise around the signal.

On the Rachel Maddow Show just now, Maddow had Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post on, and one of the things they talked about was how to balance the volume of raw data with actual fact-checking. I hadn't been watching HuffPo on this, but after that entirely reasonable discussion, I'll probably pick it up tomorrow. I'll try to remember to post the Pitney interview once it's available as well.

UPDATE: Here's another rush to judgment from Sullivan (and, to be fair, McClatchey) that Pitney knocks down a notch (see 11:45AM), and here's the Pitney interview: