John Podhoretz moderating, Kudlow in traffic
? Standards, blog content vs. dead trees?
David Corn, Nation - Blogging vs. Journalism - Reporters gather and present information not readily available and present it, or more investigative, talking to people in corporations, bureaucracies, getting at things that people don't want you to know. Columnists comment. Blogging is more of the latter than the former, wouldn't exist without MSM, reactive to people who spend a lot on news gathering. Sometimes bloggers get facts or documents that others haven't. My pieces for Nation are profiles of politician, may spend weeks talking with scores of people before coming up with a piece. Web column is like going on television, cover it on blog and won't get interrupted. Much better way of presenting information, less dominated by image as in TV. [KUDLOW ENTERS] If Roger's goal is to have a site full of citizen journalists, there's still a lot to be learned from old dinosaurs.
? Richard Fernandez, you were essentially anonymous in blogosphere until recently, how is your analysis strengthened?
RF - Traditional model, look at intelligence model, gather, analyze, distribute, bloggers complement regular media, provide tracking cells that swoop by regular headlines, Bill Roggio at 4th rail, tracking battle events in Iraq, creates a situation map with symbols that allows you a new way to follow the narrative. Can't think of blogs without thinking of technological revolution that underpins them, audience can come up and be the players, audience provides value, bunch of business models take images posted by readers and leverage them, this is the revenge of the guy with a day job. A lot of bloggers have interesting day jobs, medicine, programming, etc., because journalists are generalists they are amateurs in specific areas. Professional military men are bloggers, bring perspective that journalists cannot bring.
[KUDLOW TAKES OVER AS MODERATOR]
JP- Newspaper columnist, there's no particular reason to read me, I have a BA, why read me, because I can put together a sentence well? Columnists were people who didn't make editors, were shunted off from bureau chief positions, the job of being an opinion leader has been insulting to a lot of readers, that people deserve authority solely on the fact that you've been reading me for a long time. It was the words themselves that conveyed authority, not that you knew me at the club. Just because Thomas Friedman speaks to foreign minister in Egypt doesn't mean that he has any more valid perspective than someone in Georgia who can speak to Egyptians.
KUDLOW - I feel better after I blog, good therapy. Doris Kearns' book on Lincoln, refers to media coverage of elections in that era, newspapers were very opinionated, in news coverage as well as editorial. With respect to modern journalism, what's wrong with opinion journalism? Does each site need to be balanced?
DCorn - More like European media, affiliations are clear, the internet, not just blogging, put all media on more equal footing with sources with "objective" standards. Can put up stuff on Web site before NYT, more voices at same time. Things are being "nichified," can focus on the niches, when you had to get sports had to sit through local news, sports at 10.40, now four ESPN channels, fewer points of common ground and discussion. No real venue from a Cronkite to come back up from Vietnam and say things are really screwed up over there. One group can read me, etc. OSM will be the contest of ideas.
JP - Until recently it was possible to have illusion that they were not nichified, were pretended that they were balanced, were speaking from a nice. If you were a conservative you now have a more cosmopolitan media, MSM suffers from misdiagnosis in elections, a blindness that was once echoed and reinforced by one another except small, tiny publications.
?KUDROW - Is NYT site just a big liberal blog site?
Claudia Rosett, WSJ - Ultimately everything is a blog site. Transactions costs have dropped dramatically. 25 years ago with no standing, first thing I was paid for, went to Business Week, will do anything, do housing starts, how do I do this? Plowed through Yellow Pages, made 50 dollars. Today you can Google it up, get it posted in an hour. JP describing system where you're free to choose.
DCorn - Researching article, weeks talking to people in Eur parliament, all of a sudden everything he's chasing is up on a blog. Is that closer to 1860 model, a good thing or a bad thing, really ticked him off.
?KUDROW - Will the market decide, is it enough to create a marketplace or do bloggers need to slow down and take care for objective facts.
?RF - Markets forces you to take care. When you have a reputation, all of a sudden you recognize that you can throw it away and the fun goes out of it.
?JP - The doctrine for readers is caveat emptor, large organizations in media, as in all large orgs most people are mildly incompetent to worse, ten percent carry 90 percent, people don't know it to be the case, institutions are defensive, look, this is a first draft of history, they're messy, we'll correct, instead they say every word we publish is burnished in gold. In mags every word had to be literally checked off, checked facts with red pen. As a result, info was right, but was the article a reflection of reality? That was Time Mag's own fantasy.
DCorn - Isn't there some value in the aspiration to get things right?
CRosett - Weekly World News - most are not true, but that's their market. On the other hand, if you're setting yourself up selling the truth than you have to be careful. In 19th century, bucket shop journalism was prevalent [LK - 18th century also]. There are sites that you go to for gossip. THE SUN newspaper [local NY paper] has atrocities in North Korea on front page. [LK - 19th century paper, I write for it also].
JP - Internet forces modesty, will put controls on Olympian gods of information. JRosen's site, Press thing at NYU.edu. The voice of onmiscience was dead: head of CBS news. Why? Because Charles Johnson took Mary Mapes' document, printed it on a piece of paper, saw that it matched perfectly. Any sane human being could see that documents were forged, still will not say that they were forged, that's absurd.
LK - They got nailed for that, they had extreme damage to their credibility, do bloggers need to be sensitive to those mistakes?
JP - Can't slander. LK - But this is opinion, what if it had been blogged?
JP - If CBS had done it in 1980, Bush could have lost election, orgs would have held documents, they're proprietary. You'd have to presume that they were true. Story would have been true. 2004, they made colossal mistake of posting docs.
DCorn - Blogging gives media orgs an OBLIGATION to post what they know. Times-Picayune had transcripts of Clinton interview, wouldn't.
LK - transparency being imposed, market driven
JP - Not necessarily - On AP they'd provide Supreme Court opinions in full on wire. So only AP subscribers got them first, reporters got them, weren't not trustworthy, but papers may print it. Now everyone gets it within 5 minutes, more coverage, more context from more writers.
LK - Bloggers don't have excuses, then, we all have biases, just let it rip?
RF - Don't think so. Stock analyst was interested in finding facts, would go back and forth and look at the facts, the truth is not a static thing, if you have a good working theory it becomes more solid over time. There's a lot of collateral information out there that provides an approximation of the truth.
LK - Are we all going to be working for the United Nations? [Web ownership is issue]
CR- More oppy to spread lies, more oppy to spread truth. There will always be markets for lies, there's a bigger market for the truth. Gave talks in Soviet Union, gave example of Barrons and Dow Jones who sold truth, not tips. That's the thing you really sell.
LK - Optimistic or pessimistic on Internet Takeover?
CR - Dodged bullet this time, vast bureaucracy, once bureaucracies get rolling they'll be back. There's a plan here and the UN wants a chunk of it. The midnight ride of Paul Revere comes to mind, take to the blogs.
? Geographic dispersion, flattening of information hierarchy, not flat, bumpy, who has access and analytic skills? Tom Friedman example brought up, local knowledge has been able to parachute opinion.
LK - Iraqi bloggers were telling us that turnout was going to be fabulous while MSM was saying there'd me no turnout, came from on-the-ground bloggers.
? Webloggers bringing modesty?
DCorn - MSM ethos of accuracy and objectivity - no one's really objective, but having an opinion doesn't mean that you have to load it. Bloggers aren't going to be objective but should reach for a standard of accuracy. Bloggers need to grapple with this, lessons to be learned from objectivity of MSM.
JP - Cautionary blogging story. Washington Know web site, Scooter Libby indictment, Steve Clemens had been told there'd be 23 indictments, Fitzpatrick getting office space - every piece of information was untrue except for AN indictment. He was therefore humiliated in the space of a few days. But he had SOME info a year earlier, blew his "bona fides". If you say "X" is going to happen and it doesn't happen, not good, that's a problem. Other problem is comments section, a great threat by comments section, great worry is what someone build a slander case because of comments.
DCorn - I have completely open comments. JP - At some point or other someone's going to say something and someone gets sued. Keep in mind.
CR - Brand names, you can trust that you'll get what you expect, fact checking, versus Weekly World News. Destiny of OSM, attempt to build brand. If content doesn't live up to it, then fine. More investment.
RF - Blogs for the moment are confined to opinion, you found your story on mainstream media, but when you get from primary sources from blogs then it's dangerous.
DCorn - Future of journalism is webloggers competing with MSM on primary news.
LK - Isn't one objective of OSM on-the-site news? Motivating thought?
? Need more fact-oriented reporting, budgets forced cutbacks on actual reporting, replaced with attitude and zip, they've thrown away the killer rat to save money. Fashion reporter from NYT: don't care what laypeople think.
JP - True that there's been cost-cutting, if Tet offensive were today, if Cronkite said we can't win war, military bloggers would say otherwise, you don't know what you're talking about, would have at least meant 1977 story of victory was told?
[COMMENT: The killer rat comment is the key. Weblogs bring the opportunity for facts to debate with opinion more effectively than MSM.]