TBD: Betsy Rothstein’s year in Twitter battles

On June 26, Betsy Rothstein published a stirring defense of media journalism. Rothstein, the editor of Fishbowl DC, a media news and gossip site, had published some of a Washington Post blogger’s e-mails to a private Listserv, and the ensuing revelation that he’d disparaged some of the conservative commentators he regularly reported on led to him resigning from the paper. Rothstein talked about her duty to cover D.C. media even if the consequences were major. “It’s not a reporter’s job to worry about the outcome of a genuine news story in that it may upset some people,” she wrote. Later she talked about why the sins of the outed blogger, Dave Weigel, particularly irked her: “I don’t believe a reporter can hate those he or she covers and do it carefully or fairly,” she wrote.

FishbowlDC: TBD Hates on FBDC for Hating on Haters

Perhaps it’s the slow news week or maybe a cry for attention…  Whatever the cause (though I assume it’s the latter), TBD.com Arts and Entertainment Editor Andrew Beaujon jumped on the Betsy-bashing bandwagon today with a “hard-hitting investigation” that asked the tough question: does Betsy Rothstein (FishbowlDC)  hate the people she covers?  The basis of the hypocritical hit piece was an aggregation of Rothstein’s Twitter spats over the past year.  In his article, Beaujon hates on Betsy for hating on people who hate on her. Whatever the motivation, the outcome was success for the traffic-starved site as a slew of hateful tweets highlighting Beaujon’s hit on Betsy’s “hatred” toward haters poured in.

Get your popcorn.