The web and covering the 2008 election

Cory Bergman April 16th, 2007

An all-star cast of panelists tackled the issue of how the web is changing election coverage at a super session here at NAB-RTNDA. Hardball’s Chris Matthews led the conversation — which turned into a heated debate more than once — along with NBC News President Steve Capus, Jeff Jarvis, Joe Trippi and YouTube’s Jordan Hoffner, among others. The first debate began when a radio panelist, Hugh Hewitt, randomly ripped the news media for its coverage of Katrina. And the second began when an audience member (also from radio, hmmm) ripped blogging. That fired up Jeff Jarvis, which results in wonderful blogging fodder. Otherwise, the discussion revolved around sites like YouTube and the impact of user video on election coverage. Live blog follows below…

(My apologies, but this discussion went all over the place — with some fast-talkers — so this is a little fractured. And if you’re looking for tips to improve your online election coverage, there weren’t many offered.)

Chris Matthews takes the stage. “Did I miss anything over the last week?” he asks his boss, Steve Capus, who’s sitting behind him. (Matthews has been on vacation.)

“It produced itself,” jokes Capus.

“Well, there’s an item for the bloggers,” Matthews says.

Matthews shows lots of videos from YouTube. The George Allen “Macaca” clip. Hillary Clinton trying to sing the national anthem. The Omaba-Hillary 1984 “ad.” Matthews asks, how do you decide which of these clips to put on the air?

“This is such a politically-charged environment now,” Capus says, offering a note of caution. “I’m not saying that someone who’s politically motivated can’t unearth a good fact… but I just worry about things being manipulated by people who are politically motivated.”

Angie Kucharski (WBZ) adds, “We have more eyes” but we still have to put it all through an editorial process.

“I think there’s a range of video here that’s going to change the election,” Jarvis says. He also points out the videos that candidates are posting themselves, and the fact that people are posting video responses. “We have a chance for a new dialogue here.”

Trippi points out that the Hillary-Obama 1984 clip was viewed 4 million times on YouTube but probably “50-60 million” on TV. But still, “Even if the media didn’t make a lot out of it, doesn’t mean it won’t take off. The way this stuff gets spread now is peer to peer.”

“The house is going to burn down the way politics is covered,” says Hewitt, who says bloggers are providing the raw material for mainstream media.

“Don’t be so quick to write off mainstream journalism,” Capus responds. “I still think there’s an appropriate role for journalists to provide a framework and context.”

Jeff Jarvis makes a great point. “I think we’re too used to this balance schtick.” He says we want more reporting, more fact-checking.

Trippi says that the media is too consumed with how much the candidates have raised instead of how many supporters have donated to them — which is a better measure of future success, he says.

YouTube’s Hoffner is asked about the site. “It’s just a platform,” he says. “It’s up to the people to put the videos up and the people who watch everything transpire. It’s basically a soap box on steriods.”

Capus talks about the pressures of getting it right as news cycles are expedited. “There’s tremendous pressure on us right now” to quickly evaluate stories on their fundamentals or get “passed by.” Everything is happening so fast. “This is where I think having traditional journalism skills come into play.” It’s very easy to put something bad out there.

Jarvis: “The internet is not just about speed but also about coalitions.” And it all happens in public. We need to find new ways to listen and “report the substance and not just the style.”

This is where Hewitt rips traditional media’s coverage of Katrina for spreading stories that were not verified — bodies in the freezer, people jumping off the Superdome — “The frenzy was created by the mainstream media… The mainstream media did not do its job.”

“Your distorting the way the situation on the ground was reported,” Capus responds. “I respectfully disagree with that characterization…. I think it was one of journalism’s finest hours.”

Crowd applauds.

Now Hewitt plugs his website, TownHall.com. Good timing.

Trippi weighs in. “Every institution, be it the networks, government, corporations, are losing credibility right now. The most credible thing out there right now is the peer.” He goes on to explain how he would never see a movie — regardless of how much advertising or movie reviews — if his friends all agreed it’s not worth seeing. “It’s fundamentally understood (in political circles) that peer credibility is increasing why the other side is going down.”

Here’s where we get to the question from the audience. A radio guy from KNX. “What is this, a convention of bloggers?” He goes on to explain how he beat the internet on the radio with some story the other day.

Jarvis: “Let’s get beyond the us versus them thing and get to the and,” he says, explaining that the internet complements radio and TV coverage. “What can we do together?” Then he asks, “What does your station do?”

Radio guy starts talking about “good quality people and high quality information, that’s what people want.”

Jarvis is getting wound up. “What does quality people mean?”

“Good information,” responds radio guy. “The state of the news business is booming but the state of journalism is in question… there’s a lot of nonsense on the blogs.”

Now they’re talking over each other and I can’t keep up.

Jarvis: “I ask you again, what is your station doing?”

“Give peace a chance,” says the radio guy.

Trippi pipes up. “Some of the more accurate reporting in the war were people in the country blogging it,” he says. Then he offers the possible scenario of someone who is politically motivated to make a candidate look bad… who jumps a candidate with a camera and asks the same question over and over again until the candidate lashes back… and then posts just the confrontation. How will the news media know what came before that moment?

Then he talks about how the best candidates will learn that video on the internet is more personal. Needs to be authentic. He explains how Hillary is very scripted and rigid sitting on a couch. “Candidates need to get this.”

Matthews wraps it up with a point-question. The challenge is for people to distill all this information from all these voices and walk away with an educated opinion. Should they just stick with one information source?

No, agrees the panel.