We Media vs. Old Media in Buffalo
The Buffalo News ran a story yesterday October 6, 2006, pointing out how the We Media movement contrasts with Traditional Media. The contrast becomes apparent in the coverage last week of Rep. Tom Reynolds’ press conference in upstate New York. At the conference, he surrounded himself with children even though he knew he would be hit with questions about the resignation of former Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, who wrote sexually explicit emails to House pages. Here is the heart of the Buffalo News story:
The bloggers’ role in the scandal grew this week, beginning with the news conference that Reynolds held to defend the actions he took months ago after learning of the e-mails.
(Marc J.) Odien and BuffaloGeek blogger Christopher Smith went there with plans to ask a few questions of Reynolds, part of the Republican House leadership, and to record it.
The mainstream media reported afterward that children – mainly those of Reynolds’ political supporters – were at the news conference. But the bloggers were able to freely criticize Reynolds for bringing them.
“I think there are limitations to what the standard media outlets can say,” said Smith, who criticized the use of the children as “political theatrics.”
Here is more:
After posting the video early Tuesday, Odien and Smith watched as first blogs from across New York State and then from across the country linked to the video on BuffaloGeek and other blogs.
The video clip of the Reynolds event had been viewed 14,112 times in the 21/2 days since it was posted on YouTube, a video file-sharing Web site.
The footage drew the attention of a producer for “The Daily Show,” which aired snippets of the video Tuesday night, accompanied by sarcastic commentary from host Jon Stewart. “That made my day,” Odien said.
Independent blogs picked up the thread that Reynolds’ chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, who previously held that job in Foley’s office, advised Foley in the days before he resigned.
Smith, writing in the Buffalo Geek blog, which covered the press conference in question, provides the We Media point of view of how things unfolded. It includes a link to the conference video clips which were eventually posted to YouTube.
You can decide whether the citizen journalists by not following traditional journalism mores added to the truth or detracted from it.
