VOLuntarilyConservative

It is apparent that the mainstream media - especially the Knoxville News-Sentinel - is generally in the backpocket of Bob Corker and won't print or say anything to harm his candidacy. Much like when the national media protects certain Democrats like the Clintons, this is the time when the Blogosphere can be more important than the old "dead paper" format that is seeing its subscriber base shrink more with each passing year.

A case in point is the story - which is quite newsworthy - that a certain Christian Radio network (the Bott Radio Network) had added a disclaimer of sorts to Bob Corker's paid advertising on its stations. This disclaimer "tells the rest of the story" behind Bob Corker's pro-abortion record. To my knowledge, the mainstream media sources stayed away from the story. It's unknown whether they were aware of it and, if they were, if they chose to ignore it.

Terry Frank - blogger extraordinaire from Anderson County - didn't chose to ignore it. She posted on it at Frankly Speaking, even going so far as to capture the disclaimer and provide it to readers as an MP3. She then followed up after retrieving reactions from the Senate campaigns. Terry's post was linked by several sites, including that of Blogging for Bryant.

One never knows where the tipping point was, but somewhere in this story it was passed. The mainstream media picked up on the story. The Chattanooga Times Free Press has an independent story. Steve Gill spoke of it Wednesday and then again today. Then the AP wire carried a story by Elizabeth A Davis; several papers have picked up this story, including the Kingsport Times-News. CongressDaily then wrote at length in its Tennessee update about Corker being called out by a station he had paid to make him look more conservative. I've also heard a substantial rumor that National Journal may be on the verge of writing a piece on the Bott Radio action. And up the chain it goes...

Kudos to Terry Frank and everyone else in the Blogosphere for forming this snowball and getting it rolling. Corker has now apparently pulled his ads off of Christian radio. Perhaps he will run them on Air America instead. In any case, it is quite an amazing story (even if certain papers - the Knoxville News-Sentinel being one of them - refuse to print it).