Friday, March 12, 2010

You Have The Power

An interesting admission in an otherwise unrelated post:
We have a policy here not to write about political web videos, because they are meaningless. They don't actually do anything--unless, that is, if political blogs write about themWe have a policy here not to write about political web videos, because they are meaningless. They don't actually do anything--unless, that is, if political blogs write about them.
Of course, drawing the line there is arbitrary. Why stop at web videos? Why are right-wing politicians appearances in front of right-wing audiences or on talk radio treated as "news"? Why is Drudge given the agenda setting power that he appears to have? The decisions to elevate certain voices are the result choices made by people, and they can be unmade, "competitive pressure" be damned.

I'm not necessarily saying that reporters should ignore appearances in front of favorable audiences--sometimes you get a more candid conversation that way--and of course web videos are an attempt by partisan or activist outlets to garner free media with basically no effort. But there's no reason that they should be treated uniquely by the press.

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