Tuesday, September 21, 2004
The blogs strike back
To paraphrase a line I read a while back in Time magazine - when God created heaven and earth, to the Left, He gave newspapers and TV, and to the Right, He gave talk show radio. Now, it seems like he also gave the right-wingers blogs. Nancy Gibbs writes in the Time cover story on how the Bush campaign has effectively utilized the amazing power of blogs to narrowcast.
While leery of the old media, this White House is expert at narrowcasting to the new. From the Amish to snowmobile users to stockcar-racing fans, the Bush coalitions are sliced like Bible leaves and addressed according to their specific priorities.
The campaign also keeps a close eye on the blogs, using them, just as it uses Limbaugh, to mainline information to the G.O.P. faithful. "Blogs are what talk radio was a few years ago," says Bush campaign communications director Nicole Devenish. Her staff members regularly write, along with the message for the talk-radio circuit, the one that will go out to blogs and websites that link to the Bush campaign site.
As blogs come of age, they have begun to influence mainstream media, and none more so than in the recent CBS document controversy. In that story and in others, bloggers and their readers have acted as watchdogs to the watchdog role traditionally assigned to mainstream media. Andrew Sullivan writes a paean to bloggers in the latest Time magazine, as he makes that point.
Does this mean the old media is dead? Not at all. Blogs depend on the journalistic resources of big media to do the bulk of reporting and analysis. What blogs do is provide the best scrutiny of big media imaginable—ratcheting up the standards of the professionals, adding new voices, new perspectives and new facts every minute. The genius lies not so much in the bloggers themselves but in the transparent system they have created. In an era of polarized debate, the truth has never been more available. Thank the guys in the pajamas. And read them.
Thanks, Andrew. This post's for you.
While leery of the old media, this White House is expert at narrowcasting to the new. From the Amish to snowmobile users to stockcar-racing fans, the Bush coalitions are sliced like Bible leaves and addressed according to their specific priorities.
The campaign also keeps a close eye on the blogs, using them, just as it uses Limbaugh, to mainline information to the G.O.P. faithful. "Blogs are what talk radio was a few years ago," says Bush campaign communications director Nicole Devenish. Her staff members regularly write, along with the message for the talk-radio circuit, the one that will go out to blogs and websites that link to the Bush campaign site.
As blogs come of age, they have begun to influence mainstream media, and none more so than in the recent CBS document controversy. In that story and in others, bloggers and their readers have acted as watchdogs to the watchdog role traditionally assigned to mainstream media. Andrew Sullivan writes a paean to bloggers in the latest Time magazine, as he makes that point.
Does this mean the old media is dead? Not at all. Blogs depend on the journalistic resources of big media to do the bulk of reporting and analysis. What blogs do is provide the best scrutiny of big media imaginable—ratcheting up the standards of the professionals, adding new voices, new perspectives and new facts every minute. The genius lies not so much in the bloggers themselves but in the transparent system they have created. In an era of polarized debate, the truth has never been more available. Thank the guys in the pajamas. And read them.
Thanks, Andrew. This post's for you.
