Gregory Blames Blogs For Hyper-Partisanship, But Does He Even Know What "New Media" Is?

Traditional media icons like David Gregory jump at the chance to blame anyone but themselves for the ridiculous amount of partisanship in our society. They'll hardly ever look at themselves and instead, go for who they think looks weak. For Gregory, that would be the internet and the blogosphere in particular.

Gregory must wear some crazy-ass prescription on those eyes of his. Many around the blogosphere are easily pointing out instances of the hostile rhetoric started by Republicans during the Clinton years. Did we advocate for Clinton's impeachment, talk up the alleged murder of Vince Foster or cause the ballot counting process to stop in 2000 down in Florida? Of course not, only an idiot would think that. Oh wait, my apologies to Gregory on that.

So what is the problem here, why all the hatred towards these lil' ole blogs? Sites like DailyKos, Huffington Post and FireDogLake are seeing their traffic increase while the traditional media stays flat or in some cases falling. It must be fear of the blogosphere's gaining influence, but really, there is nothing to fear, if only they would take a look at what blogs and new media are all about.

So it is funny that I saw Gregory mentioned in Crooks and Liars this morning, because I attended a forum a few hours ago at Baruch College here in New York talking about this exact subject. The Peter Vallone forum series had four new media "experts" to talk to the crowd of about 50-100. I think that the free breakfast brought many of those out at the early hour of 8am, but regardless, the discussion was an interesting one.

What Keith Okrosy, Maya Enista, Jon Auerbach and Andrew Rasiej covered was wide in scope, but definitely answered the question Gregory and his buddies need to ask. Enista, who runs mobilize.org told the crowd that this new media is a way for the younger generation (and the rest of the active community) to interact with the government in a way that top-down traditional media cannot. The spin of TV is wiped away by vigorous discussion on the blogs. Sites like facebook help people to identify with candidates whereas on TV those same politicians talk AT those watching the tube.

Andrew Rasiej, who ran unsuccessfully for Public Advocate here in NYC in 2005 also talked up new media. He says if he ran again he would definitely have a Facebook page as a starter, especially with more than 60 million now on the social networking site. Having a forum where supporters can have access to the campaign and voters can ask crucial questions is a ground-up approach to campaigning where the old traditional model provoked the apathy we see running so rampant in the country today.

Keith Orosky and Jon Auerbach added in their two bits as well. Keith talked about how politics and music can blend together, such as the case of the new Nine Inch Nails album and how fans quickly communicate amongst themselves about social action. Auerbach described himself as being on the cusp of old and new media, as he runs the free daily Metro NY paper that is handed out by hawkers by subway entrances. He calls the paper an "internet read transformed into print." He thinks that people on the net want quick soundbites and be able to read about their world in a 20 minute subway ride commute. Perhaps Jon might want to check out how TV news works, but then again, he did say he was on the cusp of old and new media, not embracing it.

So David Gregory could start there if he truly wanted to inform himself, but I suspect that he'll continue to act out of fear. Bashing the blogs is much easier than dealing with the new media landscape.