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Archive for the 'MSM vs. Blogs' Category

When Not to Blog About the White House

Published by William Beutler on August 10, 2008 in Barack Obama, Beltway media, Blogs vs. MSM, George W. Bush, Journalism, Journalist Bloggers, MSM, MSM vs. Blogs, Metapost, National Politics, Newspaper Columnists, Newspapers, Startups, The Politico, Tough Crowd, Twitter, Washington Post, Website Design, White House '08 and William Beutler. 2 Comments

Politico sign in DC Metro from David Boyle in DC via Flickr.

Last week I traded a series of Twitter “@ messages” with Jay Rosen, the NYU journalism professor, blogger and media critic. The first one asked:

Maybe you know. Q: why doesn’t Politico have a Ben Smith for the White House? Bets on whether they’ll get one if Obama wins?
He’s got a point. The Politico lists the organization’s designated blogs on its front-page in this order: Ben Smith on Dems, Jonathan Martin on GOP, Shenanigans on Gossip, The Scorecard on Campaigns, The Crypt on Congress, Michael Calderone on Media, James Kotecki on whatever. The Politico is literally blogging about “whatever” but not about “the White House.” So I guessed, in fewer than 140 characters:
Smith-Martin are a package deal, covering both primaries. Politico: more campaign, less governing? But that’s a great idea.
Prof. Rosen suggested in turn:
How about a PI post? Politico columnists for the Dems, Reps, Congress, Media, Gossip, Campaign trail, but no White House?
To which I replied:
Mike Allen certainly covers the WH. But not in blog form, true. Have friends down there, so I can ask. Possible PI post indeed.

And so I did, getting in touch with a half-dozen or so current and former Politico writers, asking for their thoughts, on background. I also made an effort to get VandeHarris on the record, but they did not return e-mails by my less-than-rigorously self-enforced deadline.

So here’s what I could piece together:

  • When the Politico launched a little under two years ago, the presidential campaign offered the biggest opportunity first. Politico was first conceived as a newspaper to be called Capitol Leader — “Yet Another Newspaper Aimed at Capitol Hill” as the Washington Post had it. The Executive branch wasn’t even in the picture until John Harris and Jim VandeHei were.

  • As noted above, the newspaper that did emerge hired the much-acclaimed, much-accosted former White House reporter for Time and WaPo, Mike Allen. He writes big stories, is in good with Drudge, and produces content on a daily basis like everyone else. The format of his output is a secondary matter.

  • Most everyone I talked to seemed to assume that no matter who won the presidential election, the Politico would increase their White House coverage after the election. After all, it’s the logical continuation of the campaign stories they are covering now. Some said they thought a blog would be involved, and no one volunteered the opposite.

One thing that occurs to me is that other major newspapers have blogs covering the White House as a beat, as do regional newspapers with Washington correspondents, but none of them command major audiences (even when they resort to Olympics T&A).

People care about the big stories that emanate from the White House, and they’ll get that from every newspaper and every political blog inside the Beltway, but few are looking for the day-to-day minutiae. Bush is a lame duck, interest has waned even in some of the bigger stories, and other national newspapers have moved their White House correspondents to the campaign trail.

The answer given reminds me a bit of the response I got in the summer of 2006 when I first wrote about the opening for a “Republican ActBlue”, viz., just wait. It may be worth noting, the person who did finally create one was not yet working on it at that time.

So, yes, the Politico will probably have a White House blog next year. Whether Politico writes the one that Jay Rosen is hoping for remains to be seen.

Photograph by David Boyle in DC via Flickr.

Blogger Rises to Top Job at Los Angeles Times!

Published by William Beutler on July 27, 2008 in John Edwards, Journalism, Journalist Bloggers, MSM vs. Blogs, Newspapers, Scandal and William Beutler. 3 Comments

Today, the Times of London reports on the John Edwards sex scandal and the awkward non-coverage here in the states, and it includes at least one sentence that will be very amusing to the L.A. blogosphere:

Tony Pierce, editor of the Los Angeles Times, issued an edict to the paper’s own bloggers to stay off the subject. “Because the only source has been the National Enquirer, we have decided not to cover the rumours or salacious speculations,” he wrote.

Wow! Tony Pierce, longtime writer of Tony Pierce dot com + busblog and former editor of LAist, has risen all the way to become chief editor of the fourth-largest newspaper in the United States by reported circulation? That’s incredible!

It may sound credible, but it certainly is not creditable. Pierce is a web editor at the L.A. Times, overseeing about two dozen blogs on the latimes.com website. And except for the part about working for the Times, that sounds like a pretty good job by itself.

The Times of London simply omitted the conditional “an” before “editor,” giving an inflated impression of Pierce’s role. I thought maybe there was a difference between U.S. and U.K. English usage, but after clicking around google.co.uk, I’m pretty sure it’s just a mistake.

So who is editor of the Los Angeles Times? After all the turmoil at the newspaper these past few years, I had to look it up: Russ Stanton, a 10-year veteran of the paper, who was in fact a web editor himself.

So don’t count Pierce out yet. In the meantime, at least there are now thousands of people around the world who think that he is, in fact, editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times.

P.S. Another reason why Pierce has a shot? He may have been punk at one time, but from what I’ve heard of the fallout, he’s been fairly humorless about it. I suggest Tony “Keep Rockin’” Pierce as an appropriate nickname.

P.P.S. This leaked follow-up memo from L.A. Times executive editor Meredith Artley gets it right the second time. That’s one memo too late, but it still should have been leaked more widely.

O Captain! My Captain! Rise Up and Read the Blogs

Published by William Beutler on July 13, 2008 in Charts and Graphs, MSM vs. Blogs, Relaunches, Site Traffic and William Beutler. 10 Comments

On Saturday, John Fund wrote a story in which he inadvertently referred to a certain well-known political blogger as:

…Ed Morrissey of the conservative blog Captain’s Quarters…

This prompted Morrissey to joke:

I’ll have to get John to update his Rolodex.

On Saturday, a Los Angeles Times op-ed by George Washington University proefessors John Sides and Eric Lawrence began:

Daily Kos. Little Green Footballs. Talking Points Memo. Instapundit. Firedoglake. Captain’s Quarters. These are among the thousands of political blogs that are increasingly a factor in U.S. politics.

If you see where I’m going with this, you are probably someone who is a constant reader of conservative blogs. If you don’t, then you probably are not.

Here’s where I’m going: Twice in two days somebody with access to the mainstream media, from just outside but interested in and conversant with the blogosphere, has failed to recognize that Morrissey shuttered his Captain’s Quarters blog almost five months ago, and has been writing for Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air ever since.

It’s almost the inverse what I’ve said about how MyDD didn’t miss a beat when its top two writers decamped for a new website: as long as it continues to fulfill its mission, many casual readers will barely notice, and will be unlikely to remove it from their bookmarks. In this case it seems that casual observers of the blogosphere are so familiar with Captain’s Quarters that they assume it must be going strong, and it will be ever thus.

In a sense, the blog appears to be influential even when unread. More accurately, Captain’s Quarters simply has strong brand equity. Morrissey’s considered, even verbose explications of the latest political developments from a realistic (though not a “realist”) conservative viewpoint maintains a presence in the mind of even very occasional readers, even if the blog itself is no longer maintained, or present.

That’s not to say his impact has diminished: in fact it may be greater than ever. And so this presents a good opportunity to run another site traffic comparison, counting unique visitors, via Compete:

Captain’s Quarters vs. Hot Air on Compete.com

When Morrissey pulled up stakes, he took his entire readership with him. They didn’t have much of a choice, as typing in the old captainsquartersblog.com URL will swiftly deposit you at hotair.com without displaying so much as a redirect page first. In fact, initially it seems Hot Air grew by an even greater number of visitors than were lost at CQ, even counting the growth in traffic Morrissey experienced in his last month blogging solo. This rapid growth has leveled off and even dipped slightly, but it’s clear now that Hot Air is twice as big as it was before. The move appears to have paid off exactly as they hoped.

I confess that back in February I was personally skeptical of Morrissey’s decision, based primarily on the fact that he was giving up such a strong brand to go join a stable of bloggers under someone else’s shingle. I’m glad now that I didn’t write about it then. But even if Hot Air had received only a modest bump in traffic, the joining of forces would probably have still been a good idea, at least for Morrissey.

Now, if the worst that can be said is that some small number of readers are still thumbing through his archives, perhaps under the impression that he is still updating posts as “Captain Ed,” then that’s fine. It even helps us spot the ones who aren’t really paying attention.

What’s So Difficult About a Hat Tip?

Published by William Beutler on May 21, 2008 in Asymmetrical Media, Entertainment, Journalism, MSM, MSM vs. Blogs, Mickey Kaus, Newspapers, Newsweek, Publishing, Scandal, Stephen Colbert, Television and William Beutler. 2 Comments

A movie news and reviews website named Latino Review has a pretty interesting lead article on the front page right now, titled “Why both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter TOTALLY SUCK!” Here’s an extended excerpt, although there is much more in the full piece:

A little over a week ago, on May 14, 2008 we exclusively broke the news that Jason Reitman, the director of Juno was adapting the book UP IN THE AIR which you can read HERE. Later on that afternoon, Jason Reitman’s publicist Bebe Lerner of ID PR called me personally and asked me to update our story. Our scoop forced her to go into spin mode. Bebe wanted us to say that Reitman’s directing deal for UP IN THE AIR was not yet in place. We kindly obliged. In return, the only thing we asked Ms. Lerner to do was to tell the Hollywood trades to either mention or credit us with breaking the story. She agreed. As a precaution, when we broke the story we even emailed Borys Kit over at The Hollywood Reporter and a reporter at Variety. …

Later that night at Midnight (EDT), Variety posted the story on their site which you can read here. Guess what? We weren’t mentioned. We emailed Tatiana Siegel and Michael Fleming (Variety) and kindly requested that their story recognize our contribution and properly credit us. We were ignored.

An hour later at 1A.M., The Hollywood Reporter ran their story without crediting us over here. We were heartbroken.

Later that morning on May 15, 2008, we again emailed Ms. Siegel and Mr. Fleming at Variety and once again we we’re ignored. At least Borys Kit from The Hollywood Reporter was kind enough to email us back, apologize, and explain the situation.

That apology is bittersweet though because Borys Kit and Variety did it to us again today with the news of Jake Gyllenhaal being cast as the lead in Prince of Perisa which we first broke HERE ABOUT A MONTH AND HALF AGO ON APRIL 8TH. This not only happens to us but to all movie websites and bloggers that break exclusive news.

I’d never heard of the site before and unless you’re a serious upcoming movie junkie (once upon a time when I subscribed to Entertainment Weekly, I was) you may not have, either. But here’s one I bet you have: Ain’t It Cool News. According to Latino Review, AICN has been mentioned by Variety and THR “a grand total of 7 times.” That sounds awfully low, but it also doesn’t sound impossible.

Indeed, this not only happens to movie bloggers but all bloggers that break exclusive news or develop new stories. Blog P.I. has noted this phenomenon more than once:

Mickey Kaus, who left the MSM of his own volition for the relative freedom (”no money, no editors”) of the blogosphere, complained about this earlier in the week:

There’s an implicit model underneath [Newsweek's Jonathan] Alter’s comments–blogs as the minor leagues, Off Off-Broadway, trying out storylines and scoops that may or may not make it to the Big Show. I have to admit I’ve embraced this model myself, as “Model Two.” I think blogs are (for the moment***) particularly suited to functioning as a sort of intermediate tryout area for burgeoning scandals (”undernews”). …

Alter makes big bucks because he’s called on to write about the story of the day at the precise moment it breaks out into the mainstream–and not a moment too soor! If the US bombs a Syrian nuclear reactor, the public wants to know about it right then–and Alter more or less has write about it or have a pretty damn good excuse why not. Newsweek’s editors, in effect, can make Alter jump. He’s very good at it. I’m not.

The problem with the “minor league” model of the blogosphere, is that it’s simply an extension of this “just in time” model of journalism–blogs are a conveyor belt, if you will, delivering news. ideas and angles to the MSM on a precise production schedule.

Of course, we also know that some of the brightest lights in the mainstream media both fear and loathe the blogosphere, simultaneously viewing them as competitors and parasites. To their mind, both are reasons to deny bloggers credit for the work they contribute in this asymmetrical media landscape.

The best defense they can offer, which Latino Review addresses in its rant, is the claim that blogger scoops are unverified gossip, while their reports are confirmed and fact-checked. They can say this without being effectively challenged because a) many bloggers, Kaus notoriously so, will write about unconfirmed stories that rise only to the level of gossip, and b) newspapers and magazines have multiple-source standards and established procedures for confirming their reporters’ work.

But it’s also true that sometimes blogs break legitimate news the MSM initially won’t touch or simply miss, and that sometimes the established news-gathering and -publishing processes break down. But never mind that — mainstream outlets hog the credit and spread the blame.

A blogger’s best hope is to be called up to the big leagues like Justin Rood, who went from TPMmuckraker to ABC News, or Brian Stelter, who went from TV Newser to the New York Times.

But we’re starting to get off track here, so let’s return to Latino Review’s narrow point: what to do when mainstream news organizations won’t acknolwedge true reports that originate in the blogosphere? In the short term, all anyone can do is raise the issue when it happens. Plagiarism is a serious issue in journalism, and eventually, some newspaper will be embarrassed enough that a visionary editor will require its reporters to acknowledge when a story they’re covering started online. Not only will this give credit where it’s due, but it will help news consumers look into the matter for themselves.

And when will this actually happen? My guess is about the same time the Pulitzer committee starts handing out awards for online journalism. In other words, I hope you’re very, very patient.

The Angriest Man in the Blogosphere

Published by William Beutler on April 7, 2008 in Asymmetrical Media, Breaking News, Journalism, Journalist Bloggers, MSM vs. Blogs, Television and William Beutler. 2 Comments

The title of this post derives from: a) a somewhat unfair Mark Bowden essay in The Atlantic criticizing “The Wire” Creator David Simon, and b) Simon’s reputation for showing up in the comments of blogs that discuss his show.

Simon is probably far too busy preparing his next HBO project — “Generation Kill,” set for July — to respond this time. But if he reads this, he should know I consider his conflicted love letter to Baltimore not just better than any other television drama, but much better by far. (I am a typical white person in this regard.) I still love “The Sopranos,” but let’s face it — it’s a cartoon, and not as well-crafted.

That said, I find Simon’s smug insult of the blogosphere in a handful of recent interviews rather less enlightening. For instance, take a long e-mail interview published in the Baltimore City Paper following the series finale in early March. Asked why he didn’t include bloggers in his portrayal of the troubled newspaper industry, he volunteered this hypothetical scene:

INT. GARDEN APARTMENT/ANYWHERE - DAY

A white MALE, thirties, unshaven, sits in his underwear typing on a desktop computer. C.U. on computer screen. As he links to Baltimore Sun coverage off the newspaper’s web site, creating a link on his own blog. The MALE scratches his left testicle, then satisfied, begins typing. C.U. on the moving cursor as commentary ensues.

CUT TO: EXT. DRUG CORNER/WEST BALTIMORE - DAY

This is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but he wasn’t kidding:

The internet is skimming the froth of commentary from the first-generation news gatherers like The Sun. They have parasitically achieved immediacy and relevance by co-opting the debate, the humor, the rage, and the provocation that results from the news product–WITHOUT ACTUALLY INVESTING OR COMMITTING IN ANY SERIOUS WAY TO THE SYSTEMIC ACQUISITION OF THAT NEWS.

And the parasite is killing the host. Is the internet a marvelous tool in myriad ways? Of course. Is it the future? No doubt. But thus far it is not a responsible or viable alternative to a major metropolitan newspaper.

Criminy. This is the mirror image of the kind of blogger triumphalism that died out several years ago. Blogs aren’t killing newspapers (although Craigslist might be) and it’s not far off the misguided rant of Sam Zell, who lit into Google News for supposedly killing newspapers shortly after purchasing the media company which owns… the Baltimore Sun, Simon’s former employer.

Look, Simon is correct that many bloggers depend upon newspapers for stories to comment upon. It’s true that most of them couldn’t do this without the old media’s content. But this is not his unique insight; bloggers themselves have been dealing with this paradox for years. And they are not all sitting around in their pajamas (as another memorable slur had it). Some have set up their own news organizations: Josh Marshall’s TPM empire includes reporters as well as commentators.

Meanwhile, journalists are moving in on bloggers’ turf as well. Reporters such as Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post or my old colleague Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic do almost all of their reporting on the web. This is a genuine ecosystem with much give as well as take. Bloggers who work for free send traffic back to newspapers. And some of those bloggers have bigger audiences than the newspapers.

Of course, bloggers working for free, or very little, is part of what many perceive to be a problem. What bloggers are really doing is taking over the kind of opinion journalism — in politics, music and movies — that were traditionally the province of newspapers. If the blogosphere is killing newspapers, it’s because much of their product is easily done by amateurs who simply didn’t have a platform before the Internet and didn’t have the tools until Pyra Labs cooked up a software program called Blogger while killing time between other projects.

David Simon at a podium, courtesy Brad Searles at Flickr.Moreover, Simon is also wrong to portray bloggers as adding nothing to the debate. The signature counter-example is when Republican-leaning bloggers asked questions about CBS’s reporting on President Bush’s National Guard service that major news organizations didn’t. Dan Rather is the most prominent scalp, but before that Trent Lott had to step down from his leadership position because of comments about Strom Thurmond’s legacy that Marshall kept alive.

Not all these stories are as prominent, and they don’t all end in firings. More recently, The Smoking Gun fact-checked a Los Angeles Times story fingering Sean Combs for the murder of Tupac Shakur; the story was based on documents that were easily shown to be unreliable, not unlike those CBS relied upon.

It may be that The Smoking Gun is not a blog, but now we’re just quibbling about content management systems. It is also true that TSG is owned by truTV (formerly Court TV), but it began as an independent website, as most blogs are. Speaking of which, Simon gave an interview with a similar rant to Salon — still independent against all odds — and still doing journalism and commentary on a daily basis.

And the competition has also likely caused major news organizations to look closer at their colleagues’ reporting. In the best of cases, it’s forcing news organizations to focus on what they’re best at — where their comparative advantage lies. Obviously that’s reporting, as Simon says. Newsgathering is moving away from newspapers to some extent, but commentary is moving away from newspapers at a rapid clip. In the worst of cases, people like Zell are making bonehead moves that will expedite the shakeout. And the guy scratching his balls in front of his MacBook is just a bit player in a changing media landscape.

I know David Simon isn’t the biggest fan of capitalism, but does he really think that competition is bad? I am sure he can’t really think that more speech is bad.

Image courtesy Brad Searles on Flickr.

Exclusive! Must Credit Radar! Even Though Radar Didn’t Break It!

Published by William Beutler on December 31, 2007 in Asymmetrical Media, Attribution, Hillary Clinton, MSM vs. Blogs and William Beutler. 1 Comment

Big Head DC, the disreputable local gossip rag that routinely outdoes Wonkette in the disreputable gossip department, reports on Radar, Wonkette and the Ragin’ Cajun:

Writing for Wonkette competitor, Radar magazine, yesterday, [Wonkette editor John] Clarke [Jr.] reported that “a source close with” James Carville told him that the Democratic political guru plans to join Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Interestingly, the piece is titled “Radar Exclusive,” yet Big Head DC revealed the same information over sixteen days earlier.

This is not the first time Radar has claimed an “exclusive” when the same information has been previously reported by bloggers.

It’s annoying enough when brick-and-mortar journalistic enterprises won’t give credit to their amateur counterparts, but when a (currently) online-only publication does the same, repeatedly, what can you say?

From now on, I’ll assume that every “Radar Exclusive” is in fact stolen from a blog.

Toward a RedState/Human Events YouTube Debate

Published by William Beutler on December 2, 2007 in Asymmetrical Media, Blogs vs. MSM, C-SPAN, CNN, Cable News, Daily Kos, Debates, Elections, Fred Thompson, Google, Hillary Clinton, MSM vs. Blogs, National Politics, New Media Strategies, Online Campaigns, RedState, Republicans, Technology, White House '08 and YouTube. 2 Comments

RedState and Human Events would do a better job than CNN and YouTube

On Thursday I gave a somewhat-impulsive thumbs-up to RedState’s call for CNN to sack their political director. National Review’s indispensible Jim Geraghty has outlined eight editorial oversights (four quite serious, four merely problematic) in CNN’s vetting of the televised questioners. One or two would be enough to generate a blogswarm, but eight looks like malicious negligence, and it subseqently became a full-fledged blogstorm. Worse, CNN’s statement didn’t even attempt to be a “non-apology apology” — they’re digging in their heels and claiming:

The issues raised during last night’s debate were legitimate and relevant no matter who was asking the questions. The vested interests who are challenging the credibility of the questioners are trying to distract voters from the substantive issues they care most about.

Did somebody say “fake but accurate”? As QandO’s McQ notes, the hubris implicit in that statement is galling:

Says who? Says CNN, that’s who. It is the network that chose the questions that would be aired. Consequently what aired had nothing to do with what voters found to be the substantive issues of the day, but instead had everything to do with — say it with me — what CNN decided were the substantive issues of the day.

I stand by my initial judgement — in fact, I am all the more sure of it — but I realize it isn’t going to happen. (FWIW, CNN’s political director is Sam Feist; one wonders if indie rock/iPod Nano darling Feist could do any worse). And the truth is it wouldn’t make up for the debacle, so I concede that a change is not imperative. What would be better is a pro-active solution — that is, another debate. And so I am very intrigued by a new proposal, this time issued jointly by RedState and Human Events (both subsidiaries of Eagle Pubishing), for a “do-over debate”:

We have a base of readers who represent the Republican wing of the Republican Party. You — and the Republican Party — deserve to face the questions posed by undecided Republicans, not Democratic activists. We will solicit and obtain YouTube videos from those people and vet each questioner to establish that they are — really — undecided Republicans. We hope to include soldiers in the field in Iraq, Young Republicans, and others who still have not decided among you.

Today, allow us to make you this offer: We will organize a debate at a time and date amenable to you all. We will work with a national broadcaster to broadcast the debate as well as offer it online. We, not the liberal drive by media, will ensure the questioners are who they say they are. And we will choose them based on criteria that will be fully disclosed to you all which ensure the questioners aren’t activists for any Democratic candidate.

I think this is a terrific idea. The MSM no longer has a monopoly on campaign coverage, so why should they have a monopoly over organizing candidate debates? The only good answer is because they control the airwaves. Could Fox News be persuaded to air it? Possibly. C-SPAN would certainly set up a camera, it could be simulcast on the web, and it would obviously be made available on YouTube. Heck, put it on the History Channel. I bet more people would watch it.

And if so desired, Google/YouTube (GooTube, if you will) need not formally be involved. Eagle’s online outlets could independently create a YouTube account, put RedState’s Erick Erickson and Human Events’ Jed Babbin in a short video soliciting questions, and anyone could post their videos as responses. Eagle could narrow them down, submit them to a hand-picked group of conservative bloggers to identify the best, and blog readers would be invited to vet the questions themselves. The ultimate decisions should still be made by the organizing consortium, but the crowdsourcing would be a substantial (if not bulletproof) way to head off complaints from conservatives. Necessarily, this would aso give the campaigns time to study the questions and prepare well-thought out answers — this too would be different from the “gotcha” element that annoyed so many in the CNN/YouTube debate.

Of course, the last point hints at the major reason why it wouldn’t happen. Here I’ll note: I cannot formally join the call for such a debate; as I point out whenever relevant, New Media Strategies consults for the Fred Thompson campaign, and I won’t put the campaign or my employer on the spot. Same goes for the other campaigns, though — the Iowa caucuses are now a month away and no campaign should be pressured to join a debate in a time frame this limited. The CNN/YouTube debate required months, not to mention a “Save the Debate” movement by Republican bloggers, to happen at all. So don’t hold your breath, and save your Facebook campaigns. But it’s a terrific idea.

To address another issue: A few commenters on the above-mentioned post here, including some friends of Blog P.I., apparently read my criticism of the debate as a complaint about tough questions. If I understand them correctly, they feared a not-yet-proposed alternative would result in “softball” questions. I replied that they were mistaken, and pointed to a prediction by Patterico following the Democratic CNN/YouTube debate in July:

The Democrat debate was dominated by questioners asking: “Why can’t you be more leftist?” And the Republican debate will be dominated by questioners asking: “Why can’t you be more leftist?”

That pretty much nailed it. The problem is not that the issues CNN is so pleased with itself for raising were illegitimate or unfair. They were not. It’s that those Dem-leaning questions asked by Dem-leaning YouTubers were general election questions, and the general election audience generally (as it were) was not watching. Certainly Republicans should keep an eye toward next November, but a debate for a Republican primary should focus on issues that matter to Republicans. Say what you will, but “don’t ask, don’t tell” just isn’t one of them, and it doesn’t help Republican voters make up their minds. It does no good when Google flies a publicly-identifiable Hillary Clinton supporter in to berate the candidates about their position on the issue. (One which, I would like to point out, is unlikely to be a major factor in the general, either.) In fact, it rises to the level of farce when Anderson Cooper asks said Hillary supporter to rule on whether or not the candidates answered his question and the guy says “no,” yet anyone who was paying attention knows they did answer his question honestly, but he just didn’t like their answers.

True, CNN did air questions about illegal immigration, gun rights and religion. But RedState/Human Events would query those subjects, too. They might even include a question about the Bible that doesn’t conform to slack-jawed yokel stereotypes (sorry, Joseph Dearing, whomever you are, but when you assert that your question tells us “everything we need to know” about the GOP hopefuls, that’s how you come across). Although various writers at RedState and Human Events have evinced support for various candidates (Erickson most notably in favor of Fred Thompson, I can’t help but note), I would argue they have a greater interest than CNN in a strong, fair debate that includes difficult questions for all the candidates, because (as Erickson and Babbin point out) it’s their audience who will be deciding which Republican goes on to the general election.

In short, RedState and Human Events would be better curators of a Republican debate than CNN.

Because I am confident that this do-over debate will not come to pass, I encourage both to organize similar debates for Senate and House candidates, whose primaries mostly will not be decided until further into next year. This would give them time to work out the kinks, gain experience appealing to local television channels for airtime, and give them credibility in proposing such a debate in 2012 (er, 2011, but you know what I mean). I call on Pajamas Media, NRO, Heritage or any other independent, webbish, GOP-leaning organization to do the same. Now that I think about it, I call on Josh Marshall’s TPM empire to do the same for Democrats.

You know what would be awesome next fall, sometime after the conventions and before the general election, Commission on Presidential Debates-permitting? A RedState/Daily Kos YouTube debate.

Lee Siegel, Call Your Office. You Too, Mike Godwin

Published by William Beutler on November 28, 2007 in MSM vs. Blogs, Sports, The New Republic and William Beutler. 0 Comments

LOL Baseball player, Philadelphia Phaillies, phaillingA friend has tipped me to a controversy in the baseball blogosphere — it goes strong even in the offseason — between long-lasting (or maybe just lasting-long) Philadelphia Daily News sports columnist Bill Conlin and the blogger at Phillies-focused Crashburn Alley. Philadelphia magazine’s Daily Examiner blog explains:

What started out as an innocent you suck/you’re old!-type e-mail pissing contest about Jimmy Rollins’s MVP award suddenly turned ugly when Conlin made the unfortunate decision to write this in one of his e-mail responses: “The only positive thing I can think of about Hitler’s time on earth — I’m sure he would have eliminated all bloggers.”

In context, it’s kind of funny, actually, but once Conlin — already an easy target for the online attack dogs due to his propensity to wear his Old Media badge with pride — started name-dropping Hitler coupled with the word “eliminate” to a blogger who’s already pissed off at him, well, he was asking for a pillorying. Headlines talking about how touchy he was instantly morphed into “Sportswriter Praises Hitler in Attack on Bloggers.” Yikes.

We’ve seen this before, haven’t we? Conlin’s actions are not the same as those of widely-loathed TNR contributor Lee Siegel — the unlucky will remember that Siegel posed as a fan of his own work in the comments of a TNR blog post last September — but it sounds to me like Conlin is guilty of the same kind of contempt for debate on the web that tripped up Siegel.

We might even call this self-destructive contempt Lee Siegelism. Conlin and Siegel, as others before and after, wrongly think that “anything goes” when it comes to the blogosphere, so they procede to do just about anything they see fit and don’t expect to be called on it. Big mistake. Siegel and Colin certainly are far from being newcomers to journalism, but well into their careers, the media has changed. When it comes to this flatter, meritocratic media age, they’re the newbies. And it turns out they’re the ones who need to learn some respect.

P.S. I’m a Nats fan and reader of Ball-Wonk — so the team from Philadelphia will always be the Phaillies to me.

Web 2.0 May Change Media, But You Can’t Trace Web 2.0

Published by William Beutler on October 31, 2007 in Asymmetrical Media, Blogger Panels, Blogs vs. MSM, CNN, Direct Mail, E-mail, Journalism History, Journalist Bloggers, MSM vs. Blogs, Meatspace, Metapost, Newspapers, Technology, Web video and William Beutler. 1 Comment

Not to turn Blog P.I. into a catalog of things I did last weekend, but on Saturday I sat on a panel at the Phillips Foundation’s fall retreat for recipients of its journalism fellowships (about which more below). My co-panelists were Jose Vargas from the Washington Post, Amy Schatz from the Wall Street Journal, and Abbi Tatton from CNN. I was a replacement fill-in, which is why I was the lone non-journalist — but hey, I was a licensed journalist not too long ago, so, close enough for (the discussion of) government work.

The subject was how technology is changing politics — a mandate broad enough to take it in almost any direction. And if anything, I was the wet blanket of the panel. My opening comments focused on how the Internet is changing politics in ways not unique compared to previous technologies, techniques and politics. I didn’t get all the details out on Saturday, but the argument went something like:

Radio : FDR’s fireside chats :: Blogs : The Fred File* and ‘04/’06 predecessors

Television : Nixon/Kennedy Debate :: YouTube/Internet video : “Macaca”

Direct mail/voter files : Richard Viguerie’s first claim to fame :: E-mail lists/subscribers : Why John Kerry matters in 2008

Radio and blogging both gave candidates ways to bypass established media channels and speak directly to supporters and voters. Television and online video can reframe the public’s perception of political events. Direct mail then as e-mail now communicate around the media as well as solicit campaign funds from an (ideally) opt-in crowd.

Panels such as these are at their best when the most interesting comments come from the audience. One theme that emerged in discussion was how even print journalists are being asked to produce short video (and audio) segments for the Internet when reporting from the road. To some extent, each of my fellow panelists had witnessed or dealt with this issue. It’s an interesting and even logical development, as online ad revenues rise compared to the dead tree edition. One also has to also wonder how thin it stretches their already-dwindling reportorial resources. At least in the Morissettean sense, it’s ironic that the migration of news content to the web coincides with layoffs owing to competition from the web.

My friend Robert Bluey, also present, volunteered that his alma mater, Ithaca College, is now offering a course it calls “Backpack Journalism.” He explains in an interesting post at his own blog:

Students are given a backpack with a MacBook, video camera, digital camera, a recording device and other instruments to produce a story. After receiving their assignments, the students are dispatched to cover the story using multiple media.

I find this new kind of journalism fascinating. However, I also sympathize with working journalists who are primarily writers, who may now find themselves needing to acquire new skills to adapt to a changing industry. My co-panelists are among the lucky ones — I suspect they’ll learn new tricks more quickly than some of their older colleagues.

One of whom might be Michael Scully, former journalist, journalism professor and blogger (but not the writer from The Simpsons). I tend to share his fears about what “backpack journalism” will mean in some (many, most?) newsrooms:

If Backpack Journalism is about sending ONE person out into the field to report a story, than Backpack Journalism is a travesty. It’s an accountant’s dream but an editor’s nightmare. Accountants love it because you’re sending one person out into the field to produce the work of three people; it’s an editor’s nightmare because the quality of the work is diminished.

I submit that the true business model for New Media must be to send THREE people out into the field. Let one report, one produce, one shoot. Each skill is very important, each skill is very different, each skill has a professional value.

On the other hand, someone who could do all three well would be highly sought-after and accordingly compensated. If the job description caught on, it would presumably spur different kinds of students to enter journalism in the first place. Myself, I actually applied to film school out of high school, but instead pursued print journalism in-state, as I that proved more realistic. But if becoming a “backpack journalist” was an option at Allen Hall, I’d at least have given it the old college try. Heck, I might have even finished my Journalism double-major.

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And you know, I bet we can fit this into a hastily-assembled anti-triumphalist SAT problem like the ones above:

Print Journalists : The Internet :: Pre-Internet Journalists, I.e. Mostly Print Journalists : Every New Media Before the Internet

Note: As I promised above, a bit more about the Phillips Foundation Journalism Fellowship Program. They are presently seeking applicants for 2008. If you’re inclined toward constitutional democracy and classically liberal economics, and have less than ten years of journalism experience, then you (yes, you!) could land $50,000 to $75,000 to write on a topic of your choosing. Details here. Tell ‘em Blog P.I. sent you.

*I was also the only panelist with a client of current interest, so it made for a few interesting moments as the subject was indeed taken in almost any direction. Hats off to the Standard’s Michael Goldfarb for trying to get me to make news.

In-Cohen-rent

Published by William Beutler on September 4, 2007 in Blogs vs. MSM, MSM vs. Blogs, Rhetoric and Washington Post. 0 Comments

I’ve sometimes wondered if Beltway/MSM columnists include derogatory references to political bloggers merely to get a rise and, from that, some linkage. After reading this morning’s Richard Cohen column, I no longer wonder:

A survey of political bloggers showed that 94 percent of them had never been out of the country or read anything other than a Harry Potter book.

Unfortunately for Cohen, it doesn’t necessarily work.

P.S. Yes, I realize the headline of this post is, itself, in-cohen-rent.