Excuse me while I touch the sky

Posted at 9:53 PM on February 1, 2006 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)

Warning! Warning! Stream of consciousness posting follows.

This follows the discussion that got underway in the note about the Checks and Balances posting about Patty Wetterling's internal polling and what it means for the quotation of which to appear on a blog "run" (and I use that term loosely) by mainstream media; in this case, MPR. Michael at Minnesota Democrats Exposed has raised some good points.

I know they're good points because my bosses here raised them too and my bosses would never raise a point without it being good. OK, sure, the chances of them actually reading Polinaut aren't real high, but...

Seriously, here's a little background on all of the intricacies that went into the creation of Polinaut: one day I woke up and said, "we should have a political blog to go with Campaign 2006 that can capture a sense of the content and feel of political blogs around here." I asked my immediate boss, who said "OK" and then tried to sneak it through the rest of the chain of command and get it actually up and running before anybody actually noticed. That's the thing with being on the fringe side of mainstream media (i.e. online): you can do a lot of things that the bosses don't really know about it until it's too late.
But nobody said "no," even though they surely recognized this constituted moving the furniture around a bit.

About two days into Polinaut, a bigger boss than my immediate supervisor advised me of two things (1) he hated the name and (2) he hated the "cartoon" graphics. "They're going to hurt us," he said. Well, three things actually. He hated my picture too.

He didn't actually say, "hey, we're Minnesota Public Radio and we need to be stuffy and boring. People expect it," but he might as well have. Because he'd be right. Content-wise, a lot of people, I think, expect Minnesota Public Radio to be pretty much what it was a year ago, or five years ago, or 10 years ago. It should be... comfortable because in that comfort zone is the illusion of credibility.

Obviously, I disagree. I've been in the radio business for 30 years and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that a good way to achieve irrelevance, if not outright unemployment, is to do something because "that's the way we've always done it," even as the world around you is changing.

And then there's the little matter of the arrogance of mainstream media that dares -- even for a moment -- to believe that they can set the pace of changing how people consume information, simply because they always have. I'm sorry, that's just not possible anymore.

So what's this got to do with politics? Well, politics, as I'm guessing you're aware, is for the hyper-sensitive and the reaction to what people say about politics tends to be hypersensitive too. Mainstream media HATES hypersensitivity. MSM is hypersensitive to hypersensitivity.

As noted in the comments section, however, the way people are changing how they consume information is changing faster than MSM's ability to process it. And so even though starting a blog puts us squarely on the cutting edge of, I'd say, 2002,it seems like too much, too fast for a lot of people -- including a lot of people here. I get that. People are afraid that credibility will be lost because people won't know the difference between these colliding worlds. And they're right. It will on occasion, until people become more familiar with how these worlds relate.

There is, in fact, a difference between the "clipping service" nature of blogs and the dutiful, highly respected, much appreciated, and much admired process that leads to a newscast...or a talk show.

That the difference exists, however, doesn't erase the fact that most people don't yet know there's a difference. And that's the tension that exists in MSM newsrooms when someone says "blog." That's why I got a voicemail from the Kennedy campaign late this afternoon that said I didn't post the Rasmussen poll numbers that showed Mark Kennedy erasing an earlier deficit with Amy Klobuchar. Fair enough. But if I didn't -- and maybe I didn't, I don't remember -- so what? The blog -- this blog -- by its very nature, is going to throw stuff online as (1)fast as I can and (2) without keeping score. Sometimes I'll hit it. Sometimes I won't.

Now I wouldn't say that if I were writing stories. There, I would keep score. To me, that's a difference. Polinaut is one guy, perusing the blogs in Minnesota and elsewhere and trying not to duplicate stuff that's already out there, and tossing up the occassional tidbit that I hear screamed from one side of the newsroom to the other that might have some relevance. It's a very short trip to this page...shorter than anything MSM has ever done.

Is it worth doing? I sure think so. Are we -- that includes you -- going to help define how MSM embraces blogs? I sure see it that way.

At the moment, there's still a territorial DMZ between "the news" and "the blogs" here and at other MSM. In broadcast, the name "blog" is never uttered, even off the air except in the company of an adjective. Online, we're not going to put the Polinaut content in the news columns (except as a related link sometimes).

But take a look at what the Washington Post is doing. Using Technorati, the Post is embedding "what the blogs are saying about this story" in the story. That's just got to be killing some of those old dogs in that newsroom.

Let me close this sermon with a couple of links of folks who are trying to get MSM more interested in taking blogs seriously. The Center for Citizen Media and Buzz Machine. Check them out when you get a chance and I think they frame -- certainly better than I obviously can -- some of the issues surrounding MSM and blogs.

I think we're at a very important crossroad. I think blogs, especially in politics and especially in Minnesota, are going to get more exposure in the MSM and isn't going to be in a couple of paragraphs in the Saturday Strib. It's going to be everyday. And there are days you're probably not going to like it. There are going to be days I'm not going to like it.

And there'll be some evolutionary growing pains. For that, I apologize in advance.

Let's keep talking until someone hears us!

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Comments (3)

Good comments. Fight the power.

Posted by gml4 | February 2, 2006 12:52 AM

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I have Polinaut as one of my "Favorites" thanks!

Posted by Kathy Lamp | February 2, 2006 8:48 AM

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Yup. Keep it up. A couple blogs at the Wash Post are regular reads for me; a blog about the MN scene is a perfect addition.

Posted by bsimon | February 2, 2006 12:22 PM

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