Posted by
Marcy Muser on Sunday, December 31, 2006 4:25:23 PM
Hugh has
a very good post today on
this Boston Globe article about Mitt Romney's progress in interacting with the "new media." Hugh criticizes the author of the Globe article, Scott Helman, on several counts. And while I believe Hugh's criticism is valid, it's easy to go overboard and ignore the surprising progress that's taking place.
As recently as three years ago, very few people had any concept of the power of the blogosphere (I know - I was one of those who didn't!). With the Kerry campaign and Rathergate came the explosion of the blogosphere onto the scene. As Rathergate unfolded, it became obvious that the old media had no idea how many people were reading the blogs, nor of how quickly news could spread as a result. Rathergate forced old media outlets into a recognition that something was happening out here that they had no idea existed.
Over time, traditional reporters and politicians gradually figured out that the blogosphere had become increasingly powerful. They went after it with both barrels blazing - criticizing, mocking, questioning its credibility, attempting to ignore it. They tried everything they knew to get people to stop trusting the blogs and go back to trusting the "professional journalists." Unfortunately, intelligent people realized that lawyers were likely to be more trustworthy about legal issues, doctors were likely to be more reliable about medical issues, and soldiers were likely to be more informed about military issues than any journalist could be about any of these things. Rather than giving up our trust in the blogs, we learned to use them more intelligently; and the protests of journalists only made us more suspicious of them.
Then old media must have decided "If you can't lick 'em, join 'em," because they began to try to develop their own blogs. This effort was destined to failure, since those blogs were generally written by the same "professional journalists" who were failing in the old media.
And of course they are still producing articles like the one Hugh discussed with Joe Rago on his program a week or so ago - editorials trying to say that blogs are unreliable and will never measure up to "real" journalism - but articles and editorials unsupported by any kind of evidence, and easily contradicted by anyone who knows the blogosphere.
This article by Scott Helman, and perhaps a tiny handful of others written recently, actually attempts to take the blogs seriously. It quotes from some (though as Hugh points out, not all) of its sources - even offering a couple of links in the online article, and it appears to recognize who some of the major players in the blogosphere are. That's significant progress over the standard old media approach.
While I agree with Hugh that Helman's article has a number of failings (primary among which in my opinion is its failure to acknowledge the author's real bias), it seems to me we must recognize and applaud the progress Helman has made here. He is in fact dealing with conservative blog authors and readers as the generally intelligent, thoughtful, independent people we are, rather than as mere sheep following the dictates of Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, or some other secret leader. He is actually getting some news from an important conservative blog source - something that until recently no reputable old media outlet would even have considered.
It's fair to criticize Helman for places in which he still underestimates or misunderstands the blogosphere; but let's recognize the progress he has made and give him credit as well. It is journalists like him who will lead the charge, if it's going to happen at all, for old media to actually survive.