PJ Media

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Pajamas Media (PJ) is a right-wing blog aggregator co-founded in 2005 by Charles Johnson (founder of Little Green Footballs)[1] and Roger L. Simon. After briefly changing its name to Open Source Media (OSM™), it reverted to its original in November 2005.[2] According to Simon the purpose of Pajamas Media is "to give bloggers access to more advertising revenue" and "to develop a Blog News Network that will do what many bloggers fear Google will no longer do; aggregate blog posts on various topics and present them for bloggers and blog readers to peruse and search through."[3] Upon its inception Richard Silverstein pointed out that in addition to spreading mostly right-wing commentary, the owners will also profit "handsomely" by advertising to readers:

Their purpose is to persuade the visitors to all of these separate blogs to come together and spend their time at Pajamas Media buying products offered there (Dave of Israelly Cool in his diatribe against this post doesn’t seem to understand that I’m speaking of ads–so let me spell it out to ya Dave). A multi-author blog will (the founders hope) give the new site the heft needed to bring major online advertisers to the venture and pay the participants handsomely for their efforts.[4]

History

Johnson and Simon were encouraged by their experience of "two events that marked the growing influence of blogs on society: a blog-driven investigation into the United Nations Oil for Food scandal and another into the falsified military records cited by CBS News in coverage of President George W. Bush." [1] "[A]lready friends via their blogs, Little Green Footballs and Roger L. Simon ... as they talked to other participants in the ever-expanding blogosphere, an idea began to take shape." This eventually took the form of Pajamas Media.

In 2005 PJ's editorial board members and contributors included 'Instapundit' Glenn Reynolds; CNBC's Larry Kudlow; Michael Barone, blogger and senior writer, U.S. News & World Report; David Corn, blogger, columnist and Washington, D.C. editor for The Nation; and Claudia Rosett, the journalist who played a key role on breaking the UN 'Oil for Food' controversy.[5]

Popularity

In operation since 2005, PJ has increased its web popularity over the years. The majority of PJ's bloggers hold right-wing political views, but PJ also includes bloggers that are considered Liberal, such as David Corn (formerly The Nation editor) and Marc Cooper (who is no longer part of the PJ network). As Cooper notes, PJ did not market itself as right-wing in the beginning, but quickly progressed in that direction over the years.[6]

Editors

PJ's website no longer contains a dedicated list of editorial members but on its "About" page PJ lists the following people with editorial positions:[7]

Funding

In September 2010 a Politico report revealed that multi-millionaire Aubrey Chernick provided millions in seed money to Pajama's Media (Chernick also funds David Horowitz's Freedom Center's Jihad Watch) when it was first beginning:

A onetime trustee of the hawkish Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Chernick led the effort to pull together $3.5 million in venture capital to start Pajamas Media, a conservative blog network that made its name partly with hawkish pro-Israel commentary and of late has kept up a steady stream of anti-mosque postings, including one rebutting attacks by CAIR against Spencer — who Pajamas Media CEO Roger Simon called “one of the ideological point men in the global war on terror.”[8]

Bloggers

As of October 2010 PJ includes the following bloggers in its PajamasXpress section:

A 2005 list of bloggers (web archive) who had signed up with Pajamas Media OSM.

Beginning in September 2005, Pajamas Media provided profiles of the bloggers who had signed up for its services. Among the profiles were:

Pajamas Media Editorial Advisory Board in 2005

As of October 2010 these names are listed on PJ's website with editorial positions, but no full Editorial page is open to the public anymore. As of November 23, 2005 the following names were listed as members of PJ's advisory board (the links are no longer active):

Affiliations

Pajamas Media is listed as one of the four 'favorite' media sources by the neoconservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies along with Steve Emerson's Counterterrorism Blog, William Kristol's Weekly Standard and National Review Online.

Contact details

Pajamas Media Los Angeles headquarters
100 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 275
El Segundo, CA 90245
Telephone: 877 676-2564
URL: http://pajamasmedia.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/pajamasmedia Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pajamasmedia

Resources

Profiles

External articles

Notes

  1. ↑ Richard Silverstein, "CHARLES JOHNSON AXED FROM PAJAMAS MEDIA MANAGEMENT", Tikun Olam, 3 December 2007
  2. ↑ Jennifer Guevin, "Open Source Media group met with harsh criticism", CNet News, 17 November 2005, accessed on 30 October 2010
  3. ↑ Pejman Yousefzadeh, "The Rise of Pajamas Media", Tech Central Station (web archive), 20 May 2005
  4. ↑ Richard Silverstein, "PAJAMAS MEDIA’S TILT TOWARD ISRAELI RIGHT", Tikun Olam, 20 October 2005
  5. ↑ Press Release, PR Newswire, 17 October 2005
  6. ↑ Marc Cooper, "Pajamas Media Drops Trou (Updated)", MarcCooper.com, 26 June 2010
  7. ↑ PJ, "About Us", Pajamas Media, accessed on 30 October 2010
  8. ↑ Kenneth P. Vogel and Giovanni Russonello, "Latest mosque issue: The money trail", Politico, 4 September 2010, accessed on 29 October 2010
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