Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Online news and politics with Dee Dee Myers

After the International Women's Media Foundation's "Courage in Journalism" panel discussion last Wednesday me and some classmates got some one-on-one time with MSNBC political commentator Dee Dee Myers, Bill Clinton's former press secretary, and she had some interesting things to say about online news.

Myers said that when looking at the connection between politics and online news, media technology is definitely changing things and "it's taking awhile for us to get used to it." She said that because of the 24-hour news cycle when something big politically happens, politicians are having trouble in figuring out how to respond to them. "It happens every day," she said. "When people are responding it come out dribble, dribble, dribble over time."

She points to the congressional page scandal with former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and the congressional leadership's response. "Republican House leaders were pressured to respond quickly and they had to say they didn't know, which contradicts the original statement."

So in a way, Myers thinks that blogging and online news can be damaging politically. For me, I've always thought about the immediacy of news now that there's the Internet as a good thing, because I'm a journalist and am glad I can help get information to people faster. But it's interesting to hear another perspective on the effects of advanced technology.

Myers said that she's too old to be Web 2.0-savvy and that she doesn't really use blogs yet but sometimes she has to post on them for MSNBC. She said that she's skeptical of blogs because she's used to going to print versions of media first and is unsure if blogs have the same accountability level as traditional media. "People go online and they'll say anything," she said. "What's the value of that? It can be very damaging if you say something that's untrue and it turns out people have read it." What do you think about Myers comments on online news?

2 comments:

tromano said...

It seems like Internet-literacy is a major issue that is holding back the real mainstreaming of online journalism. As the general population becomes more web-savvy, growth in blogs will continue even more.

I wonder if there are any drawbacks to that - I think there might be an advantage to have people that are skeptical about online journalism and where it comes from and who's accountible.

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