Oh. My. God.
Clearly, the world is coming to an end. Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo -- two liberal online news outlets -- are now part of the White House press pool. Gone are the days when only reporters from hallowed brick-and-mortar outlets are the only ones sitting in on press conferences and with them, those halcyon days when good solid prostitutes were doing the work of asking the president why he's so awesome. The world is changing, find's Politico's Michael Calderone, and maybe not for the better.
Yes. How terrible. You wonder if Baker's ever heard of organizations with names like "FOX News," "Wall Street Journal," or "Washington Times." Excuse me if I dismiss this complaint as stupid.
"[T]he real question is this: Can the reporters from HuffPo and TPM (my alma mater) be counted on to do a fair and impartial job doing the pool reports?" writes Greg Sargent. "No one seems to doubt that Sam Stein and Christina Bellantoni will do just that. Until they — or whoever else does them — prove otherwise, it’s unclear what the fuss is about."
I've got an idea what all the fuss is about. This morning, I read a Reuters article on news media and the internet. It seems that, with the recession dropping ad revenue through the floor, more and more news organizations are looking at putting their content behind a paywall. But there's a little problem:
While this was presented as an argument for charging, it represents a little bit of a problem in that HuffPo and TPM have no plans to do so. If you want a story on a White House press conference or a new policy announcement, where are you going to go -- the source that charges or the source that doesn't?
While I have no doubt that there's a bit of inside-the-beltway snobbery involved in this outrage over lefty internet upstarts crashing the establishment party, it's hard not to believe that the competition plays into it as well.
Clearly, the world is coming to an end. Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo -- two liberal online news outlets -- are now part of the White House press pool. Gone are the days when only reporters from hallowed brick-and-mortar outlets are the only ones sitting in on press conferences and with them, those halcyon days when good solid prostitutes were doing the work of asking the president why he's so awesome. The world is changing, find's Politico's Michael Calderone, and maybe not for the better.
That’s been apparent this week, as White House reporters have privately discussed and debated the recent addition of sites like Talking Points Memo and Huffington Post to the White House in-town press pool. It’s not that reporters are criticizing the work of either Christina Bellantoni or Sam Stein, but some have expressed concerns about pool reports coming from left- or right-leaning news organizations that will then be used by the rest of the press corps.
“This is really troubling,” said New York Times reporter Peter Baker in an e-mail to POLITICO. “We’re blurring the line between news and punditry even further and opening ourselves to legitimate questions among readers about where the White House press corps gets its information.”
Yes. How terrible. You wonder if Baker's ever heard of organizations with names like "FOX News," "Wall Street Journal," or "Washington Times." Excuse me if I dismiss this complaint as stupid.
"[T]he real question is this: Can the reporters from HuffPo and TPM (my alma mater) be counted on to do a fair and impartial job doing the pool reports?" writes Greg Sargent. "No one seems to doubt that Sam Stein and Christina Bellantoni will do just that. Until they — or whoever else does them — prove otherwise, it’s unclear what the fuss is about."
I've got an idea what all the fuss is about. This morning, I read a Reuters article on news media and the internet. It seems that, with the recession dropping ad revenue through the floor, more and more news organizations are looking at putting their content behind a paywall. But there's a little problem:
RTL, Europe's biggest commercial broadcaster, conducted a recent experiment in which it asked viewers wanting to watch a special episode of a drama to pay 1.10 euros ($1.66) or else watch a six-minute preroll ad and answer six questions.
Over 90 percent chose not to pay. "If you want people to pay, you can't have a free offer," CEO Gerhard Zeiler told Reuters. "We experiment, we have to get this right, and we have to get the consumer to pay for at least some of the content."
While this was presented as an argument for charging, it represents a little bit of a problem in that HuffPo and TPM have no plans to do so. If you want a story on a White House press conference or a new policy announcement, where are you going to go -- the source that charges or the source that doesn't?
While I have no doubt that there's a bit of inside-the-beltway snobbery involved in this outrage over lefty internet upstarts crashing the establishment party, it's hard not to believe that the competition plays into it as well.
1 comments:
If Faux News is allowed to be credentialed, then why not Huffington Post and TPM? If we are going to get one slant force fed to us over the airwaves, at the very least let there be a counterbalance online
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