We often hear prideful chatter in the ‘sphere about stories covered by it but ignored by the mainstream media – two that come to mind are Ann Coulter’s recent comments about John Edwards and Trent Lott’s wistful remembrances in 2002 about Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats – events covered but not widely reported by the mainstream media until the ground was well travelled by the ‘sphere. Today brings a painful example of the reverse: Eat the Press covers the latest issue of Newsweek – an issue “featuring the words of troops killed in Iraq — their letters, journals and emails sent to wives, sons, daughters, siblings, parents, sweethearts, friends”, described by Washington Post Co. chair Don Graham as possibly “the best issue of Newsweek in the 75 years of the magazine” – and the absence of any significant coverage by it in the ‘sphere:Technorati shows 76 links to the story — barely a blip, especially after almost a week in. Meanwhile, the blogs that did pick it up are hardly big shakers — this one has one inbound link, as does this one, by a woman whose nephew had a poem in the issue…. There’s no Little Green Footballs, no Instapundit, no Atrios, no Malkin, no Daily Kos, no ThinkProgress, no Crooks & Liars, no Captain’s Quarters, no Power Line, and, yes, no Huffington Post (though the package hit #1 on MSNBC.com, which meant it showed up on ETP via the “Top Stories” widget to the left).

Now that the Techmeme pile-on over the Kathy Sierra problem is over, I’ll mention that Loren Feldman has one of the few sensible reactions to the Kathy Sierra problem that I’ve heard (honestly, a code of conduct?), and inexplicably is one of the only tech bloggers to mention Michelle Malkin’s post on the subject.Why, for example – instead of all of the endless talk – why hasn’t someone put together a team of smart geeks to act as a SWAT team to sniff out and publicly expose the anonymous cranks, loons and whackjobs who make life so miserable for so many on the ‘net? Why the endless anguished nattering about the importance of keeping an open dialogue by not banning commenters, instead of just ruthlessly banning anyone who interferes with life in the community? IMO, this is an easily solved problem – or would be, for people who genuinely cared enough to act.