Huffington on the DSM
The BBC in a recent article quoted figures from a recent Arianna Huffington column, which "compares the major US news networks' focus on three stories from 1 May to 20 June: Natalee's disappearance, the Michael Jackson trial and the Downing Street Memo." According to Huffington, on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC combined, there were 56 segments dealing with the memo, 646 on Natalee and 1,490 on Jackson.
Here are the full figures she cites in her post, for "the number of news segments that mention these stories: (from a search of the main news networks’ transcripts from May 1-June 20)."
So it's not as if the network news was doing any better than cable in covering the DSM story - now rapidly fading into history.
Huffington also cites some interesting comments from such media watchdog worthies as Josh Marshall and Jay Rosen. Unfortunately, Rosen's comments - posted on June 20, relating the process by which news items ignored by the MSM get fed back into the news loop by the bloggers - now seem largely irrelevant as far as the DSM is concerned. Yes, a huge blogger-inspired push (based on solid UK-originated news gathering) did seem set to push the DSM story fleetingly into the spotlight (a pretty weak spotlight, as it happens). But that spotlight quickly moved away to other, more interesting stories for the news media - such as Natalee Holloway.
I don't know if Howard Kurtz still thinks of the the DSM case study as a "coming of age" moment for the progressive blogosphere. But if this is what counts as a "bloggers' victory", I really wouldn't want to see a full-fledged defeat!
Dr Media very appropriately compares the DSM story with Greg Palast’s "expose on the disenfranchisement of African American voters in Florida in the 2000 presidential election." In the DSM case, the bloggers have made a difference in propelling what should be a major news story, but - if I can use a football analogy - they've succeeded only in moving the ball down the field. The question is, how far down the field did they move "the story" this time. And how close did they come to scoring (if by "scoring" we mean the story hits some sort of critical mass to became a major defining issue that dominates politics and news coverage in the way that, say, Watergate or Monica Lewinsky dominated)? That's a tough question. Maybe the bloggers got closer to the endzone than we realize, but it's clear that the Bush administration and the MSM have now - at least for the moment - driven the ball way back to the other end of the field.
Here are the full figures she cites in her post, for "the number of news segments that mention these stories: (from a search of the main news networks’ transcripts from May 1-June 20)."
- ABC News: "Downing Street Memo": 0 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 42 segments; "Michael Jackson": 121 segments.
- CBS News: "Downing Street Memo": 0 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 70 segments; "Michael Jackson": 235 segments.
- NBC News: "Downing Street Memo": 6 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 62 segments; "Michael Jackson": 109 segments.
- CNN: "Downing Street Memo": 30 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 294 segments; "Michael Jackson": 633 segments.
- Fox News: "Downing Street Memo": 10 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 148 segments; Michael Jackson": 286 segments.
- MSNBC: "Downing Street Memo": 10 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 30 segments; "Michael Jackson": 106 segments.
So it's not as if the network news was doing any better than cable in covering the DSM story - now rapidly fading into history.
Huffington also cites some interesting comments from such media watchdog worthies as Josh Marshall and Jay Rosen. Unfortunately, Rosen's comments - posted on June 20, relating the process by which news items ignored by the MSM get fed back into the news loop by the bloggers - now seem largely irrelevant as far as the DSM is concerned. Yes, a huge blogger-inspired push (based on solid UK-originated news gathering) did seem set to push the DSM story fleetingly into the spotlight (a pretty weak spotlight, as it happens). But that spotlight quickly moved away to other, more interesting stories for the news media - such as Natalee Holloway.
I don't know if Howard Kurtz still thinks of the the DSM case study as a "coming of age" moment for the progressive blogosphere. But if this is what counts as a "bloggers' victory", I really wouldn't want to see a full-fledged defeat!
Dr Media very appropriately compares the DSM story with Greg Palast’s "expose on the disenfranchisement of African American voters in Florida in the 2000 presidential election." In the DSM case, the bloggers have made a difference in propelling what should be a major news story, but - if I can use a football analogy - they've succeeded only in moving the ball down the field. The question is, how far down the field did they move "the story" this time. And how close did they come to scoring (if by "scoring" we mean the story hits some sort of critical mass to became a major defining issue that dominates politics and news coverage in the way that, say, Watergate or Monica Lewinsky dominated)? That's a tough question. Maybe the bloggers got closer to the endzone than we realize, but it's clear that the Bush administration and the MSM have now - at least for the moment - driven the ball way back to the other end of the field.
posted by hdougie at 2:14 PM
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