February 17, 2005
Hannity says FReepers eat their own; FReepers strike back
Syndicated radio and Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity accused denizens of Free Republic of being fringe folks who "eating their own" on his radio show yesterday, which brought down the ire of many on the popular conservative forum.
Many on FR who responded to the on-air diatribe pointed out that Hannity appeared to be drumming up support and potential posters to the recently-established message board on his own site, Hannity.com.
"Free Republic is childish. Come to MY board instead".Some agree with Hannity's assessment of FR as a "fringe element."
OK, I concur. The freepers are freakin nuts. There are over 2,500 comments on this post now. It's getting seriously kooky over there.While others (myself included) find FR and a majority of the posters there to have significant merit.
Radio host Kevin McCullough also points out that Hannity seems to have confused the concept of a message forum (like FR) with what a blog is.
If he took some time, backed up a bit, he would discover that Freepers and Bloggers both would be quite generous to his new site and the new "messageboard" feature that he was pumping in the audio bite. That's part of what bloggers do, generously link and share traffic - based on the idea that the more people who distribute information - the more the public is armed to make informed choices. Blogs are not about crowing over how "BIG" your site is. Bloggers know who is big, and they know better than you do...And in terms of full disclosure, I am a regular poster at Free Republic, and have been so for several years.
Much like many other message forums across the internet, there are good points and bad ones; good posters and bad ones. Free Republic does not have a monopoly on "bad guys" as many (including apparently Hannity) would have you believe. There is certainly merit there as there is in much across the web.
I've met Sean once, and have found him to be polite and gracious and a true gentleman. I'm truly surprised that he would take this "bite the hand that feeds him" tactic in regard to FReepers. If I had the opportunity to talk to him directly, I'd advise him to reconsider his words from yesterday. There is plenty of room for the forum on his site among the others on the web; he might find that there are a fair number of folks who post on his site that also post on FR.
Posted by mhking at February 17, 2005 11:41 AMI think he was kidding around. But as long as you have to register at hannity.com to even *see* the messages, FR has nothing to worry about.
Posted by: Donnah at February 18, 2005 02:45 PMHannity is probably the biggest self-promoter in the media today. I think he'd sell Bush up the river too if the money and fame was right.
Posted by: Expertise at February 22, 2005 12:24 AMThe misunderstanding within the MSM as to what is a blog is widespread. Once the blogs made a mark on Dan Rather/Memogate it seemed that every MSM talking head started a site of their own. None of them knew the difference between a weblog and a website however and hence they all promote their website, which also has a comments board, as though they are in on the blog deal. And, I will lay you dollars to donuts that not one of them wears pajamas when they direct their webmaster to get them more hits!
Posted by: Richard at February 22, 2005 08:12 PM