McLaughlin Group--Topics for the week of September 4th thru 7th:
Old Media Still Rules
Mark Twain once said rumors of his demise were premature. The same is true when it comes to traditional media. With his $5 billion purchase of Dow Jones & Company, Rupert Murdoch has become the world's first truly global media titan. Rupert Murdoch's gargantuan intercontinental media empire spans film, television, tape, direct broadcast satellite, magazines, book publishing, newspapers and Internet properties like the popular social networking site MySpace. The common thread in this historic global communications conglomerate is an unequal fusion of old and new media, and Murdoch is living proof that old media is still in the ascendancy. Question: What's the real impact of the Internet on the world of media? And you can work somewhat with what Murdoch has shown us.
"I think it's going to be a miraculous fusion. Forced prediction: Will newspapers flourish or die? They will survive."
-John McLaughlin
Shield Me
REP. MIKE PENCE (R-IN): (From videotape.) As a conservative, I believe the concentrations of power should be subject to great scrutiny. The longer I serve in Congress, the more firmly I believe in the wisdom of our founders, especially as it pertains to the First Amendment and freedom of the press. It's important that we preserve the transparency and integrity of our American government, and the only way to do that ultimately is by preserving a free and independent press. Now is the time to repair this tear in the First Amendment - pass a federal media shield law. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Congress is still debating a federal shield law to prevent prosecutors and other law enforcement authorities from forcing journalists to reveal their sources except under extreme circumstances such as national security. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia already have installed these shield laws to protect legitimate journalists from being compelled to disclose their sources. Question: Is a shield law justified?
"I don't think the federal shield law is necessary. I think you need to look at two things, sort of. Is it needed, and what would it actually protect? On the "Is it needed?" question, we've never had one. And it's pretty hard to argue that journalism in this country has suffered from the lack of a federal shield law and that there aren't sufficient confidential sources. The fact is, sources are willing to come forward based on a guarantee by the reporter that they won't be named in the story. They're not worried about whether a judge two years from now is going to compel the reporter to testify. And that very rarely happens. And the second thing we need to look at is sort of who would be protected in a lot of these cases, because if you look at the big high-profile cases in recent years, these are not classic whistleblowers that are putting information out to the public. It's people who have tried to use the media for some improper purpose."
-Scott Gant
Gatekeepers Begone
MARKOS MOULITSAS (DailyKos.com founder): (From videotape.) They don't need to look at the media's gatekeepers. They can make their case directly to these activists that are on Daily Kos and on other blogs like it. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: That's Markos Moulitsas, the originator of Daily Kos blog and the Yearly Kos, the blogger convention that bears the second half of his first name. In early August, hundreds of Internet journalists and bloggers descended on Chicago for that Yearly Kos convention. It was a veritable who's who of new media pioneers. Now, once upon a time, the press coverage of presidential campaigns was done by a handful of reporters, mainly men, who traveled with the candidates on the press plane and the press bus. Hunter S. Thompson covered the 1972 Nixon-McGovern campaign for Rolling Stone, and in the process he invented gonzo journalism, which described the political coverage process that then prevailed. Well, that was then. This is now. Now anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can write about politics. Blogs, which stands for web logs, which means using the Internet as a personalized reporting and opinionating vehicle, has brought this about. Last year Americans launched 14 million new blogs featuring commentary on everything from reviews of consumer products and hobbies to national and international news. Independent news gathering and streaming video plus low-cost but high-production-value digital content are featured on blogs. Some of these blogs are practically indistinguishable from those of well-established newspapers like the Financial Times and news networks like NBC. This technological empowerment has emboldened some to declare that the boundaries between old media and new media are dissolving. In other words, we are all journalists now. Question: If we're all journalists because of blogs, and there are 70 million blogs in the world, and 120,000 new blogs launched everyday worldwide -- practically one every second -- with that amount of clutter, what hope is there for anyone to break through? In other words, the vast majority of blogs are doomed to be niche media, small niche media, tiny, not mass media. And if you're so buried, how can you call yourself reasonably a journalist?
"Well, I've always said that journalism is something you do, not something that you are. And so anyone can come in and act a journalist. I mean, it doesn't matter where they do it. So, I mean, we all have the potential to be journalists now."
-Ana Marie Cox
Bloggers Defined
Question: If we're all journalists because of blogs, and there are 70 million blogs in the world, and 120,000 new blogs launched everyday worldwide -- practically one every second -- with that amount of clutter, what hope is there for anyone to break through? In other words, the vast majority of blogs are doomed to be niche media, small niche media, tiny, not mass media. And if you're so buried, how can you call yourself reasonably a journalist? Pat Buchanan. MR. BUCHANAN: Well, you can call yourself what you want, John. But in the Web, it is also true -- you take Drudge. That's my morning newspaper. I go down there and look at it. He's got the stories I want. You've got the columnists you want. So you go through that. Then you buy the newspapers. The Washington Post and the other newspapers have their own stories on the Web. What this is doing is it is really changing, I think - newspapers and magazines in print are going to be on the way out. But I think it's simply going to be transmitted to you through the Web. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, that's not news gathering, which is what the journalist does. That's news aggregation, isn't it? MR. BUCHANAN: Well, most of the blogs are opinions. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Isn't it, Scott? By the way, Scott, congratulations on the book, "We're All Journalist Now," a great read, an easy read, and quite -- it breaks new ground, quite groundbreaking. MR. GANT: Thank you, John. There is no guarantee that any particular blogger is going to find their audience. But fortunately, we have both a free press and a free market in this country. And what that means is there's no guarantee that someone's going to break through and gain an audience. But I'd much prefer to have people, however they do in the free market, rather than have the government decide what we should be reading.
"I think part of the issue, too, John, is the breadth of the term blogger. I mean, we have a wide range of activity out there from people who are writing what's really sort of a daily diary about what they had for breakfast that they don't expect anyone to read but maybe family and friends, all the way up to the major media websites and blog sites. And so, not unlike print media, where you have everything from The New York Times down to little local newsletters, and you're just seeing a wide range of activity. And they won't all break out to be major national media, but that's not different from other forms of media as well."
-Radall Eliason
Media Evolving...
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is the new media breaking ground, meaning that it is getting up there with the old media in terms of volume? MR. GANT: We're in the first inning of a dramatic transformation of the way we share information and ideas with one another. MR. BUCHANAN: With the old media, John, you take the network I work for, MSNBC. They've got a great website. It's nationwide, and you go in there. You go into the other websites. John, if you write books now, you go get columns; you get stories from newspapers that have already been published. You take them out, and that's what you use to draw from. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, do they shape the coverage of the main media?
"I'll tell you what's going to kill some of the newspapers -- already cable has -- is the immediacy of the reporting. When CNN came, I mean, we were in the White House with Reagan. They were out on the lawn reporting stories five times before the network news came. When we were with Nixon, John, 64 percent of the American people relied on the network news, the three big networks, for their foreign and national news as the primary source. Now the democratization of the media is unbelievable. "
-Pat Buchanan
Old Media Still Rules
Mark Twain once said rumors of his demise were premature. The same is true when it comes to traditional media. With his $5 billion purchase of Dow Jones & Company, Rupert Murdoch has become the world's first truly global media titan. Rupert Murdoch's gargantuan intercontinental media empire spans film, television, tape, direct broadcast satellite, magazines, book publishing, newspapers and Internet properties like the popular social networking site MySpace. The common thread in this historic global communications conglomerate is an unequal fusion of old and new media, and Murdoch is living proof that old media is still in the ascendancy. Question: What's the real impact of the Internet on the world of media? And you can work somewhat with what Murdoch has shown us.
"I think it's going to be a miraculous fusion. Forced prediction: Will newspapers flourish or die? They will survive."
-John McLaughlin
Shield Me
REP. MIKE PENCE (R-IN): (From videotape.) As a conservative, I believe the concentrations of power should be subject to great scrutiny. The longer I serve in Congress, the more firmly I believe in the wisdom of our founders, especially as it pertains to the First Amendment and freedom of the press. It's important that we preserve the transparency and integrity of our American government, and the only way to do that ultimately is by preserving a free and independent press. Now is the time to repair this tear in the First Amendment - pass a federal media shield law. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Congress is still debating a federal shield law to prevent prosecutors and other law enforcement authorities from forcing journalists to reveal their sources except under extreme circumstances such as national security. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia already have installed these shield laws to protect legitimate journalists from being compelled to disclose their sources. Question: Is a shield law justified?
"I don't think the federal shield law is necessary. I think you need to look at two things, sort of. Is it needed, and what would it actually protect? On the "Is it needed?" question, we've never had one. And it's pretty hard to argue that journalism in this country has suffered from the lack of a federal shield law and that there aren't sufficient confidential sources. The fact is, sources are willing to come forward based on a guarantee by the reporter that they won't be named in the story. They're not worried about whether a judge two years from now is going to compel the reporter to testify. And that very rarely happens. And the second thing we need to look at is sort of who would be protected in a lot of these cases, because if you look at the big high-profile cases in recent years, these are not classic whistleblowers that are putting information out to the public. It's people who have tried to use the media for some improper purpose."
-Scott Gant
Gatekeepers Begone
MARKOS MOULITSAS (DailyKos.com founder): (From videotape.) They don't need to look at the media's gatekeepers. They can make their case directly to these activists that are on Daily Kos and on other blogs like it. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: That's Markos Moulitsas, the originator of Daily Kos blog and the Yearly Kos, the blogger convention that bears the second half of his first name. In early August, hundreds of Internet journalists and bloggers descended on Chicago for that Yearly Kos convention. It was a veritable who's who of new media pioneers. Now, once upon a time, the press coverage of presidential campaigns was done by a handful of reporters, mainly men, who traveled with the candidates on the press plane and the press bus. Hunter S. Thompson covered the 1972 Nixon-McGovern campaign for Rolling Stone, and in the process he invented gonzo journalism, which described the political coverage process that then prevailed. Well, that was then. This is now. Now anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can write about politics. Blogs, which stands for web logs, which means using the Internet as a personalized reporting and opinionating vehicle, has brought this about. Last year Americans launched 14 million new blogs featuring commentary on everything from reviews of consumer products and hobbies to national and international news. Independent news gathering and streaming video plus low-cost but high-production-value digital content are featured on blogs. Some of these blogs are practically indistinguishable from those of well-established newspapers like the Financial Times and news networks like NBC. This technological empowerment has emboldened some to declare that the boundaries between old media and new media are dissolving. In other words, we are all journalists now. Question: If we're all journalists because of blogs, and there are 70 million blogs in the world, and 120,000 new blogs launched everyday worldwide -- practically one every second -- with that amount of clutter, what hope is there for anyone to break through? In other words, the vast majority of blogs are doomed to be niche media, small niche media, tiny, not mass media. And if you're so buried, how can you call yourself reasonably a journalist?
"Well, I've always said that journalism is something you do, not something that you are. And so anyone can come in and act a journalist. I mean, it doesn't matter where they do it. So, I mean, we all have the potential to be journalists now."
-Ana Marie Cox
Bloggers Defined
Question: If we're all journalists because of blogs, and there are 70 million blogs in the world, and 120,000 new blogs launched everyday worldwide -- practically one every second -- with that amount of clutter, what hope is there for anyone to break through? In other words, the vast majority of blogs are doomed to be niche media, small niche media, tiny, not mass media. And if you're so buried, how can you call yourself reasonably a journalist? Pat Buchanan. MR. BUCHANAN: Well, you can call yourself what you want, John. But in the Web, it is also true -- you take Drudge. That's my morning newspaper. I go down there and look at it. He's got the stories I want. You've got the columnists you want. So you go through that. Then you buy the newspapers. The Washington Post and the other newspapers have their own stories on the Web. What this is doing is it is really changing, I think - newspapers and magazines in print are going to be on the way out. But I think it's simply going to be transmitted to you through the Web. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, that's not news gathering, which is what the journalist does. That's news aggregation, isn't it? MR. BUCHANAN: Well, most of the blogs are opinions. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Isn't it, Scott? By the way, Scott, congratulations on the book, "We're All Journalist Now," a great read, an easy read, and quite -- it breaks new ground, quite groundbreaking. MR. GANT: Thank you, John. There is no guarantee that any particular blogger is going to find their audience. But fortunately, we have both a free press and a free market in this country. And what that means is there's no guarantee that someone's going to break through and gain an audience. But I'd much prefer to have people, however they do in the free market, rather than have the government decide what we should be reading.
"I think part of the issue, too, John, is the breadth of the term blogger. I mean, we have a wide range of activity out there from people who are writing what's really sort of a daily diary about what they had for breakfast that they don't expect anyone to read but maybe family and friends, all the way up to the major media websites and blog sites. And so, not unlike print media, where you have everything from The New York Times down to little local newsletters, and you're just seeing a wide range of activity. And they won't all break out to be major national media, but that's not different from other forms of media as well."
-Radall Eliason
Media Evolving...
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is the new media breaking ground, meaning that it is getting up there with the old media in terms of volume? MR. GANT: We're in the first inning of a dramatic transformation of the way we share information and ideas with one another. MR. BUCHANAN: With the old media, John, you take the network I work for, MSNBC. They've got a great website. It's nationwide, and you go in there. You go into the other websites. John, if you write books now, you go get columns; you get stories from newspapers that have already been published. You take them out, and that's what you use to draw from. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, do they shape the coverage of the main media?
"I'll tell you what's going to kill some of the newspapers -- already cable has -- is the immediacy of the reporting. When CNN came, I mean, we were in the White House with Reagan. They were out on the lawn reporting stories five times before the network news came. When we were with Nixon, John, 64 percent of the American people relied on the network news, the three big networks, for their foreign and national news as the primary source. Now the democratization of the media is unbelievable. "
-Pat Buchanan
posted by Charlie Farrow at 6:38 PM
