Welcome to the media, bloggers

Denver Post ^ | January 13, 2005 | David Harsanyi

[aynrandy]

Here's some advice on bribery: If you're out to corrupt a journalist, bribe one who doesn't already agree with your position. It's just sinful to squander tax dollars on paying off a supporter. Good press should be free.

True, Armstrong Williams is hardly a journalist, but rather a commentator with a self-described conservative agenda. He was dropped by his syndicate (as well as The Denver Post) for accepting $240,000 from a public relations firm hired by the Department of Education to promote No Child Left Behind.

Williams was greedy. The Department of Education was flat-out wrong. And the whole affair is tawdry. Once a journalist, or a commentator, accepts money from an organization with a political agenda, it renders that person's credibility irrelevant to anyone who is serious about the news.

Williams' payoff also provided a fresh supply of ammunition for liberals to shoot at conservative pundits.

This week, however, the regal Dan Rather, the CBS stalwart of the unbiased media establishment, kept his job after a weak-willed report cleared him of any politically motivated bias. Evidently, a fabricated story intended to smear a sitting president and influence an election was just an honest mistake.

Which offense is more serious? We could argue. But CBS's decision to let Rather off the hook only fuels a long-standing conservative animus: a feeling that the mainstream media, or rather "Old Media," have been a platform for elitists who practice deceitful and biased journalism.

Enter the "New Media."

Spearheading the "New Media" offensive - which includes a horde of radio talk-show hosts - are the blogs.

The Rocky Mountain Alliance of Blogs (RMA), a collective of conservative Coloradans, is, according to them, the first bloggers group in the nation specifically invited to attend and provide coverage of a State of the State address.

After his speech today, Gov. Bill Owens will sit down with RMA members for up to 30 minutes.

Earlier this week, Colorado House Minority Leader Joe Stengel invited the bloggers to take part in a retreat of Colorado House Republicans. The meeting was set to discuss strategic and tactical plans for the legislative session and next election cycle. Speakers include Owens, Stengel, Bob Beauprez and Dick Wadhams - who talked about the influence of bloggers in the 2004 race.

Now, you may ask yourself, why in the world would the governor or the Republican leadership put stock in what a blogger - or, as Jonathan Klein, a former executive vice president of CBS News, so smugly put it, a "guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing" - has to say about the future of Colorado?

"What they understand is the importance of the new media," says Clay Calhoun, an RMA member whose blog had 8,000 unique visitors in November.

"What they're interested in doing now, as they are the minority, is searching for new ways to communicate with the constituents and leverage this new media."

Radio pundit and author Hugh Hewitt, author of "Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World," writes that people are looking for "new ways to communicate ideas because the old media simply can't be trusted anymore."

Me? I work for the "old media." Despite what my fellow conservatives may think, I've never been told by management to avoid a topic, nor have they "assisted" me in crafting my opinion.

Nor have I, as some of my ... um, fans may suggest, been paid off Armstrong Williams-style. I think No Child Left Behind is good legislation, for free.

Guess I'm just a sucker.

The existence of RMA and rise of new media give the public more options. That's always positive. It doesn't diminish the work of journalists - unless they're sloppy or on the take.

No doubt, some blogger will dissect this column, paragraph by paragraph, and refute everything I've written.

I'm OK with that, too.

David Harsanyi's column appears Monday and Thursday. He can be reached at 303-820-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.

[Zeppelin]

***No doubt, some blogger will dissect this column, paragraph by paragraph, and refute everything I've written.

I'm OK with that, too. ***

I like it! =P