"Not that it makes any difference whatsoever. The change has already happened," writes Hugh Hewitt, noting that "Somewhat incredibly, Howard Kurtz files a second day story on the CBS internal investigation, an article focusing on critics of the report, and cites only one blogger --Jonathan Last":
The MSM's cooperation in that disappearing of the new journalism from the picture, tells us that last year's amusing and interesting development -- the blogosphere -- is this year's competition. Bloggers will get as much attention from print and broadcast political reporters as television types got from radio men in the '40s.
Bloggers setting the pace undercuts the value of every political and media reporter working today. It would be foolish to expect this subgroup of journalists to elevate their competition for the public's benefit.
I do think that, generally, legacy media has figured out that the blogs are a mortal threat to their very existence, and not in some hazy far off time, but right now, this year and next.
Absolutely. Check out Howard Fineman's enlightening recounting [via Lucianne] of the rise and fall of what he dubs the AMMP (American Mainstream Media Party):
The crusades of Vietnam and Watergate seemed like a good idea at the time, even a noble one, not only to the press but perhaps to a majority of Americans. The problem was that, once the AMMP declared its existence by taking sides, there was no going back. A party was born.
Conservative activists, tapping their own pocketbooks or those of sympathetic corporate tycoons, learned to work around the AMMP with mailing lists, grassroots politics and direct-mail, first through the Postal Service, then the Internet.
Were Dan Rather and Mary Mapes after the truth or victory when they broadcast their egregiously sloppy story about Bush's National Guard Service? The moment it made air it began to fall apart, and eventually was shredded by factions within the AMMP itself, conservative national outlets and by the new opposition party that is emerging: The Blogger Nation. It's hard to know now who, if anyone, in the "media" has any credibility.
Not hard at all, Howard. The mooring lines have slipped the anchors, and the ships are sailing -- with the wind at their backs -- on to new ports, no longer tethered to the pompous arbiters of what NBC used to call "all the news you need to know."
When the advertisers wake up to the loss of effectiveness of using MSM to advertise, then and then only will the MSM imitate the Bloggers
Posted by: goomp | January 12, 2005 at 05:50 PM
http://ballz.ababa.net/bi/soapbox.html#20050101>Anti-idiotarianism explained.
Posted by: bi | January 13, 2005 at 12:23 PM