Access to 2008 Candidates for Prez: What It Might Mean for Bloggers
May 16th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
What might it mean for various campaigns, and the Mainstream Media since John McCain and other candidates are reaching out to bloggers?… inviting bloggers to ply the candidates with questions, in sort of what might be called numerous ‘executive phone-news conferences’?
I think we’ll see it as a leap in growth and strength of ‘the new media’s many-armed presence, as well as– for now anyway– ‘a fishing in other rivers approach,’ to see which blogs /bloggers are ‘keepers’ that will further the campaign, and which are either too small, or too irritable, or don’t taste good.
The throwback bloggers will be sorted from the keeper bloggers, no doubt.
Yet, for a blogger to be invited in now, but then possibly dis-invited later, may set up more opprobrium against a campaign and candidate than they would like. We’ll have to see.
Giving bloggers more access to candidates and campaign people can be good for big media and their pressure to bring ‘new’ news every minute of the day and night. Bloggers and MSM are symbiotic.
They need each other and they feed off one another. Without one, the other would die. I think in the best ways, the MSM and bloggers nourish each other in terms of enabling delivery of real and gutsy news and views to the public in ever more fresh ways… each one acts as a renewing force for the other.
McCain’s campaign pledges to keep everything genuine and transparent by inviting bloggers of all persuasions to the inner sanctum phone calls with their candidate. We shall all see how that works out too.
Here’s Ann Althouse, from back in Feb 2008, having some poignant things to say about McCain’s blogger-phone calls back then… including her sharpened ears about who might be on McCain’s mind for VP.
…I wonder if he has watched “Night of the Living Dead.” Someone could make a YouTube video, in the style of “Mystery Science Theater,” and do a John McCain voiceover to a zombie movie….
MORE: Let’s get to some serious stuff now. McCain resisted efforts to push him to reveal anything about his VP selection, but I noticed that — on other questions — he brought up the name… read here
Roger L. Simon at Pajamas Media writes a refreshing truth-teller piece about his second blogger-McCain phone call taken on the run…
..McCain got to discourse at length and, as many have written, the man is forthcoming with his opinions in a refreshingly direct manner for a politician. Despite the mythos about his temper, I think one of the most laudable things about McCain is that people who disagree with him do not seem to threaten him. He relishes the rough and tumble of political discussion—not that this call featured a whole lot of that….
….On the foreign policy front, we all know where he stands. He called himself Hamas’ worst nightmare—“It’s very clear who Hamas wants to be President, as well as Danny Ortega…”—and pointed out that Iran was up to yet more mischief today.
What most impressed me though is that McCain seems to genuinely… read more here
And here from Michelle Malkin, is her take today on the McCain phone calls with select bloggers. She would like McCain’s people to invite her too. That’s understandable. My bet is they will call her in very soon.
McCain reaches out to blogs…on the left;
The McCain campaign holds weekly blogger conference calls with its candidate. There are many questions I know you’d like asked, but I’ve never been able to ask them because I haven’t been one of the privileged few conservative bloggers allowed into the McCain sanctum to ask those questions for you.
Yesterday, I learned that several far left-wing blogs were invited to participate in The Maverick’s blogger conference call session (it’s part of that Big Vision Thing). I e-mailed McCain’s New Media guy, Patrick Hynes, asking if I could participate in the next blogger conference call.
After all, McCain said yesterday he’ll “listen to any idea that is offered in good faith and intended to help solve our problems, not make them worse” and “will set a new standard for transparency and accountability” and “will work with anyone, of either party, to make this country safe, prosperous and proud.”
If he’s willing to take questions from hostile liberal bloggers, why not take some from conservative bloggers who represent substantial readerships with dissenting views on how best to make this country “safe, prosperous, and proud?”
I’ll keep you updated.
Miss Malkin’s blog is here
This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 7:05 pm and is filed under Primaries, Newsweek Blogitics, John McCain, Blogging. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
