The current debate (see Are online reporters the real thing?) waging over whether bloggers, or online reporters, are journalists seems to be missing the big picture.  That picture is that the current breed of journalists, or perhaps more appropriate the news media in general, do not report information -- they report gossip, inuendo, intrigue -- material that was relegated to the tabloids not too many years ago.

For example, yesterday's AJC contained an article  summarizing 16 hours of legislative meetings as one where "tempers flared" because of the deadline imposed for legislation crossing from one chamber to the other. If you read the article, you find very little information on the substantive issues debated. 

Consider these 4 sentences used to describe more than 2 hours of debate over HB 501, a bill esigned to demolish the Department of Motor Vehicles:

State Rep. Alan Powell (D-Hartwell) led a passionate and failed effort to derail the governor's plan to reorganize the Department of Motor Vehicle Safety in an attempt to reduce the driver's license lines. Powell said the move will shatter an effective agency.

''Death is in the details, ladies and gentlemen,'' Powell warned. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." He almost prevailed --- Speaker Richardson had to step in and cast the deciding vote for the governor's plan.

One other news article appeared on this debate (House votes to disband DMVS). 

Missing from the articles are references to memos from the Office of Planning and Budget declaring that DMVS "is not broke" and therefore, doesn't need fixing.  Also missing are detailed statistics on the impact to highway safety that the breakup of DMVS will bring.  

Nothing is said about the lack of response from the leadership managing the bill on the floor.  Finally, nobody in the media reported on the almost two hour hearing where this particular legislation was set to die in committee until the "Hawks" flew in to pass the bill out (Hawks are people the Speaker appoints who can vote on any committee they wish -- yes, another essay).

Rep. Powell's arguments were so compelling so as to force the Speaker to vote twice to save a major piece of the Governor's legislative package.

The "Real Media" didn't tell you that, did they? 

Tom Crawford, a respected journalist whose main medium is 'online', has published two pieces on the DMVS bill (Rep. Powell provides links to both).  The information provided by the 'unreal' reporting of Mr. Crawford is siginificantly more enlightening than the paper press.

 If the "Real Media" is not giving us the information we need to conduct the business of a democracy, who is to question the whether online reporters are the "real thing"?

4:24:14 AM    

In the 80's, direct mail was the "killer app" for politicians.  In the 90's, the killer app was the combination of computer-aided research and fast-production of attack/response ads.  The 21st century has brung us the Internet, and in particular, the Blog as then next killer app for politics (I would submit blogs are a killer app for democracy -- but that's another essay).

Anyway, Winer points to:

Rex Hammock summarizes the online politics conference. [Scripting News]

Bottom line -- few in the business (general consultants, media and research consultants) "Get it".  There's an opportunity there.

3:45:15 AM    

Remember when I questioned why I didn't pay attention more closely to Georgia Bloggers?  Well, Robert Scoble reminds me.  In one of his many posts, he mentioned a fellow who ran the White House Web Site in 1994:

Jock Gill is sitting in front of us. He's the guy who did the first Whitehouse Website back in 94. Now he's working on Greater Democracy.

[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]

Curious, as I had friends in the EOB then, I checked out Gill's site.  There I found a post from Dana Blankenhorn (Moore's Lore) drawing comparisons of Marx and Rand -- more precisely how the perversions of their respective philosophies led to totalitarianism (now, that calls for another essay).

3:34:55 AM