"Connelly at KOS: Bloggers hijack the 'bus'"

Seattle P.I. (Strange Bedfellows blog):

CHICAGO - As a member of what's called the "MSM" - the mainstream media - this pundit found himself awkwardly moderating a panel at which four experts advised a big audience on how to bypass standard news organizations in learning about the 2008 campaign.

The key concept was making the campaign "interactive." In short, letting citizens talk back to the candidates and the commentators.

Since a young Rolling Stone writer named Timothy Crouse penned a 1970s bestseller called "The Boys on the Bus," reporters and columnists have relished the cachet that comes with covering national campaigns.

The advent of the Internet has challenged the influence of the news professions- prima donnas. We in the MSM now have broad competition in how people get information. Web sites post stories today that once would have been tomorrow's headlines.

Candidates who catch on quickly can raise enormous sums of money, either through their own Web sites, or in getting blessed by such popular sites as the liberal Daily KOS.

Contenders discounted in the national media, such as Libertarian Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul, have been able to go around the MSM and build a following on the Internet.

A welcome irreverence has been introduced to the process. Used to be that candidates fought like Hollywood starlets for the limelight and attention from veteran New York and D.C. commentators - informally nicknamed "big feet" on the campaign trail.

At the weekend Yearly KOS convention here panelists lampooned windy defenses of the two party system by David Broder of the Washington Post and predictions that didn't pan out made by Joe Klein of Time magazine.

In a panel entitled "Blogs and Journalism, the New News" former Washington Post writer and senior Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal went on and on about how the "new journalism" of the early 1970s set the stage for today's opinion blogs.

Cara DeGette, who writes for coloradoconfidential.com, made a far more telling point that major news organizations have been closing bureaus and pulling back coverage. She took Denver's two newspapers to the woodshed for having a combined total of just one reporter to cover Colorado Springs and it's surrounding environs.

The advent of Web sites has put lots of independent voices into the field, where they do digging.

Conservative bloggers were instrumental in finding discrepancies in the 2004 "60 Minutes" piece that dissected President Bush's service in the Air National Guard. Liberal Web sites have flushed together key details on the Bush Administration's purge of eight independent-minded U.S. Attorneys.

When Fox News blowhard Bill O'Reilly took out after the Yearly KOS convention here - smearing it as a gathering of haters - Daily KOS and other sites promptly uncovered multiple examples of hate speech by people commenting on O'Reilly's own Web site. The result was a record number of hits on Daily KOS and O'Reilly losing his temper on the air.

Of course there's a downside to the proliferation of Web journalism. Ideological Web sites can be a quick route for spreading smears and sleaze. As John Kerry wrapped up the 2004 Democratic nomination the Drudge Report hit him with allegations of an affair with a Senate aide. The allegation was untrue and was shot down.

In the waning days of the Clinton Administration Drudge also made false accusations of spousal abuse against Blumenthal, who sued him. In Seattle, Republican and Democratic operatives feed friendly Web sites with hits designed to keep promising candidates of the other party off balance. GOP senate candidate Mike McGavick, hoping for an issues-based 2006 race, found himself under personal attack from the get go.

The positive side of Web politics is obvious: People are getting re-introduced to participating in their country's politics after years of plopping out in front of the TV set. Web sites announce meet-ups of candidates' supporters. Small donors, motivated by Web appeals, can match the take from a pricey $1,000-a-person fundraiser at a downtown hotel. And 1,500 people took four days in their lives to attend a convention in Chicago and hear out seven Democratic presidential contenders. They got a lot more interesting questions than is usually the case on meet the press.

This commentary will appear on the P-I's Web site. The Web site has my newspaper back to being a 24-hour a day, seven-day a week news gathering outfit.

Such competition is stimulating, even for somebody who has enjoyed his seat on the bus.

Howie P.S.: As you might expect, a commenter here takes Joel to task for mentioning McGavick as a victim of personal attacks.