The left has never been hesitant to accuse Fox News of serving as an outlet to bring right-wing blog topics into the mainstream media. But Politico reports today that hundreds of left-wing reporters, bloggers, and opinion journalists have been communicating and sharing information on an off-the-record website for years.

For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList.

Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy?

Not at all, says Ezra Klein, the 24-year-old American Prospect blogging wunderkind who formed JournoList in February 2007. “Basically,” he says, “it’s just a list where journalists and policy wonks can discuss issues freely.”

But some of the journalists who participate in the online discussion say — off the record, of course — that it has been a great help in their work. On the record, The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin acknowledged that a Talk of the Town piece — he won’t say which one — got its start in part via a conversation on JournoList. And JLister Eric Alterman, The Nation writer and CUNY professor, said he’s seen discussions that start on the list seep into the world beyond.

“I’m very lazy about writing when I’m not getting paid,” Alterman said. “So if I take the trouble to write something in any detail on the list, I tend to cannibalize it. It doesn’t surprise me when I see things on the list on people’s blogs.”

Anyone who’s spent any amount of time reading these outlets wouldn’t be surprised that they’re trading story tips with liberal bloggers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see major, everyday mainstream outlets on the list, either. The left has accused righty bloggers  and Fox (and the Bush White House) of coordinating talking points for years, yet that’s exactly what our liberal friends appear to have been doing all along.

Michael Calderone asked for additional comment to no avail:

POLITICO contacted nearly three dozen current JList members for this story. The majority either declined to comment or didn’t respond to interview requests — and then returned to JList to post items on why they wouldn’t be talking to POLITICO about what goes on there.

Via Hot Air.