Scotusblog is getting attention. Yet (sadly) it is not that influential.

SCOTUSblog, and its founder, Tom Goldstein, have gotten a lot of attention in the past week since the Sotomayor nomination. The site has been around for six years, and it's been an incredibly useful resource. It's getting more attention now in part because of Goldstein's impressive predictions, and his analysis of Sotomayor, pre-empting conservative criticisms and reviewing her record of opinions thoroughly.

In the moments and days after the nomination, Goldstein was quoted a lot. And on Monday, Howard Kurtz profiled Goldstein and the site.

That's mostly good -- I'm all for the traditional media giving alternative media fair recognition.

Unfortunatley, though, I don't think Goldstein is as influential as Kurtz paints him to be. If you read FAIR's analysis of the Sotomayor coverage so far, they argue that the news has been heavily built on conservative criticisms. Those conservative ideas are what is driving the media agenda; Goldstein's analysis, which said that she is relatively moderate, is getting less attention.