Every few years (four to be exact) we are all treated to a surge of political reporting that is worth looking at to see how the communications industry continues to change. This year, there is a huge emphasis on social media, on grassroots communication and on video on the web. And, again, there is an amount of spinning that makes me -- someone in the communications industry -- dizzy. For some time, I've been convinced that search would cut down on the most egregious examples of what I consider to be the worst of spin -- having someone say one thing one day, and something totally different the next, or repeat something that has zero bearing in fact. The MSM has not been good dealing with this, but the self-correcting nature of the online world....well, I had hope.
I think I've been a bit of an optimist. Just the examples of the last week make that brutally clear. First, we saw an attack on the MSM, culminating with this fulminating blast from Bill Kristol today regarding reaction to Sarah Palin:
It’s not just that many in the media don’t like her politics and don’t identify with her socially or culturally. They’re offended that McCain picked Palin without, so to speak, consulting them. The establishment media take pride in their role as gatekeeper to our political process and social discourse.
So the gatekeeper media’s reaction has been: Who is Sarah Palin to suddenly show up on the national stage? We didn’t vet her. And we don’t approve of her.
This ignores totally the change in the media landscape; as near as I can tell, the online media, blogs and other forms of citizen journalism also leapt pretty hard at the story -- not because they felt some sort of "right" to be gatekeeper, but because it appeared to be, uh, news. The outpouring of "fight the media" was so harsh that Roger Simon of Politico (a great case study in the rapid rise of influence, btw) was forced to issue an apology:
On behalf of the media, I would like to say we are sorry.
On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry.
We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.
We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?
We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her? How well did his campaign vet her? And was she his first choice?
The fact that a two year old new media outlet is now considered part of the media elite, I guess, is cause for...well, not sure.
Okay, so some of this can simply be attributed to the usual election year nonsense -- but my key belief -- the ability for people (and media) to rapidly suss out that someone said one thing today and something else tomorrow would cut down on this practice, used by both political parties, of executing neck snappingly quick u-turns. Again, not so much. Jon Stewart's section on this is topic is hilarious, and horrifying. Dave Winer suggests the answer is more citizen media; I think it's a shorter election season.