Mission Statement
The Moderate Voice was founded in December 2003 by journalist/entertainer Joe Gandelman as a personal weblog that would offer an independent voter’s irreverent comments, and serious analysis of events, issues and people in the news. A prime guiding principle was that differing ideas don’t give people brain cancer, so from the start TMV linked to Democratic, Republican, liberal, conservative and centrist blogs. It also put a special emphasis on linking to blogs written by “independent thinkers” of any (or no) party who sought to discuss issues and promote dialogue rather than hype specific candidates or repeat talk show (of the left and right) talking points.
Since then, TMV has grown into one of the Internet’s fastest growing and respected group moderate/centrist sites. And it hopes to grow more in coming years.
Some facts about TMV today:
(1) TMV seeks to offer thoughtful and detailed discussions of the issues, events and personalities in the news.
(2) TMV offers its diverse readership news articles, news article posts, original reporting, opinion and analysis posts, plus videos and editorial cartoons.
(3) TMV is NOT affiliated with any political party and will not be endorsing any candidates- although co-writers may indicate their preference for one candidate or another and are free to endorse candidates on their own websites.
(4) TMV seeks to offer readers a wide variety of news and blog links from different perspectives. It is NOT interested in getting into “blogwars.” Its writers as a rule will NOT be blasting other bloggers or weblogs because they have different ideas. Rather, we will often quote and link to writers with different ideas to show that their ideas may differ from ours.
(5) TMV offers readers a blogroll that is a virtual menu of different right, left, center and other voices — links that are not offered because we necessarily agree with a site’s content, but because they offer varying perspectives. The TMV blogroll is a WORKING blogroll that is used to help write this site.
(6) TMV’s writers do not all agree with each other. Our team of writers comes from five countries. Writers boast various backgrounds (several TMV writers worked in the mainstream news media). Just as political polls do NOT show that all centrists and moderates agree on positions, you will NOT see all TMV writers agreeing on issues. Our writers include people who are center, center left, and center right — and any writer at any given time may fall into a different category, depending on the issue. That’s because moderates will often evaluate new information, which could change their opinion.
(7) TMV seeks to seriously strengthen and nurture the blogosphere’s centrist and moderate websites by linking to them when we can. These sites often don’t get links to the big blogs on the left and right because they are not liberal or conservative enough for them. Similarly, TMV is grateful when it is also linked so that we also share in the readership of other sites in the moderate/independent/centrist “community.”
(8) TMV and its writers realize there are excellent liberal and conservative blogs that add meaningful depth to the debate of issues so it will not only be linking to centrist and moderate blogs but thoughtful writers of ALL political persuasions.
(9) TMV offers LIVELY debate of issues. Moderates, centrists and independents do not only list points on each side and never take a position. They will reach conclusions, take positions, advocate a position passionately — and vote. Posts on this site reflect this fact. Indeed, John Avlon’s book Independent Nation
chronicles how this has a fact about moderates and independents throughout U.S. history.
(10) Comments under posts are not censored if they disagree with a given writer or the general opinion of writers on the site. But commenters are expected to follow our posted commenting guidelines which, among other things, prohibit racist comments or bitter personal attacks against writers or commenters on this site.
(11) The Moderate Voice will occasionally run Guest Voice posts written by readers, writers who don’t have weblogs or some writers who have sites but want to do a special post. Guest blog posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Moderate Voice or its writers but are an attempt to widen the dialogue on issues.
(12) TMV will NOT only be covering politics and is NOT just a “political site.” It also will offer ORIGINAL REPORTING, new features, reviews and other articles about popular culture. Its subject matter will be as diverse as that of a daily newspaper or a news magazine.