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Vlogs: The Cure For 'Gotcha' Journalism?

Yesterday's update to my ongoing list of links to candidate and lawmaker interviews included a series of pointers to video blog clips with Sen. John McCain at Ankle Biting Pundits.

That site has a new clip up today, this one with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The topic is the war in Iraq.

Gingrich is not technically a lawmaker or candidate, but that's not the reason for this separate blurb. Rather, my goal here is to draw attention to something profound that Patrick Hynes said about video blogs, or vlogs, in his blog entry to highlight the video.

"Blogs have already damaged the credibility of the MSM," he wrote. "I believe vlogging has the potential to kill off agenda-driven, gotcha journalism. Newsmakers can now go straight to the people with the facts, not run them through the filter of what Rush [Limbaugh] calls 'the drive-by media.'"

He's absolutely correct -- and that's why I expect to see more vlogging in both the political and policy arenas.

Posted by | 12:51 PM

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» On A Hopeful Note... from End Of The Internet, The
People are talking about Vlogging as the next big media wave. From Patrick Hynes via Beltway Blogroll: [quote]"Blogs have already damaged the credibility of the MSM," he wrote. "I believe vlogging has the potential to kill off agenda- driven, [Read More]

Tracked on April 14, 2006 11:29 AM

» PORKBUSTERS - Congressional earmarking of funds from Rocket's Brain Trust
Instapundit has been running with this for awhile and has been linking to the Porkbuster site.

Yesterday Instapundit ran a piece and linked to an article by John Fund in the WSJ abou... [Read More]

Tracked on April 14, 2006 11:44 AM

Comments

How do people who have internet access to blogs and high speed access for vlogs communicate what they read and see to the rest of the population who are not on line or who are still getting their news from the msm?

Wouldn't it be great if there was a nation wide "Blog Daily" newspaper like USA Today? This might be something that could come out of Pajamas Media - maybe "The Pajamas Post".

anonymous | 04.14.06 10:07 AM

One hears a lot about how blogs (and now vlogs) have weakened the MSM. Rarely, though, do they cite what I think has been the driving force behind breaking the MSM's monopoly: LINKS. Ten years ago we had to rely on the media to characterize a speech or give us a politician's past positions. Now we just go to Google or click on a blogger's link and check out the truth for ourselves. (Do you think we would ever had heard about Kerry's "First I voted for it..." flip-flop in the old days??).

The ability to link directly to source documents is not only what's killing the MSM monopoly, it's largely responsible for the rise of blogs themselves.

jeanneb | 04.14.06 10:14 AM

Vlogs Will Collapse News Cycle -
Ultimately Causing More Truthfulness

Great Idea,

See this thread running at my blog re Congressman Jerry Lewis, chair of the House Appropriations Co, and the WSJ editorial yst and other pieces re the failure of the compromise on earmarks to clear his committee before the spring break.

Lewis is my congressman and I did the Army of Davids thing on his staff. There is another side to this whether you buy it or not that's your decision but the info was available via the Blogos for others to see that probably will not be forthcoming from the MSM.

Here's the link:

PORKBUSTERS - Congressional earmarking of funds

The news cycle will collapse to a matter of minutes if Vlogs become available to the Blogos. It's hard to spin when the news cycle is that short. The BS spin will become immediately obvious :--)

Rocketsbrain

rocketsbrain | 04.14.06 11:33 AM

Jeanneb makes an important point. One of my biggest complaints about MSM journalism is the institutional refusal to provide links back to source material.

The constant refrain of No Bias Here rings hollow exactly because they don't like being second guessed and refuse to directly enable fact checking.

To the MSM: Want your credibility back? Then get with the cool kids and start linking!

Moose D. | 04.14.06 02:07 PM

It's amusing that they cite Limbaugh as a, hm, filter-fighter, when he really is the ultimate filter: he simplifies, cherry picks, and opinionates facts entirely according to his own agenda for his shows.

It would be nice if we could get straight to the facts, but I'm not trusting this guy until he stops quoting Rush.

William | 04.14.06 07:34 PM

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