Who are pajamahadeen?

A portmanteu of the words pajamas and Mujahideen, Pajamahadeen or Pajamahideen refer to bloggers who constantly check facts in traditional media. The word refers to news bloggers, their main goal being overthrowing the news establishment. ‘Mujahideen’ comes from an Arabic word referring to those who participate in jihad while bloggers are said to mostly work in their pajamas.

It was coined during the Killian documents controversy during the U.S. presidential election campaign of 2004, in which webloggers were derided by Jonathan Klein, a former CBS News executive vice-president for vigorously challenging the accuracy of a 60 Minutes story by CBS anchor Dan Rather. Klein is reported as saying, “You couldn’t have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of check and balances (at CBS), and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.” Webloggers who were pursuing the story such as Little Green Footballs, Power Line, and Jim Geraghty at National Review Online took this insult and turned it into a variety of humorous self-deprecating descriptions of their form of online activism. As Andrew Sullivan noted in response to Klein’s remarks: “Actually, I’m in sweatpants and a tanktop. But of course, it doesn’t matter a jot what a fact-checker is wearing as long as his facts are correct. CBS’s apparently aren’t.”