Compare And Contrast Blogs And Reuters On Joe Trippi's Speech
from the hmm... dept
Want to see an example of spin? No matter what your politics are, it's interesting to note the vastly different takes the established media and some bloggers have on this morning's talk by Joe Trippi at O'Reilly's Emerging Technologies Conference. This morning I read the detailed notes from both Howard Rheingold and Ross Mayfield on Trippi's speech - which sounded interesting, if a bit unfocused. However, both sets of notes show that he clearly talked up the power of the internet while trashing the established "broadcast" media. So, when Reuters - a member of the broadcast media - writes up their own article on the talk, they spin it 180 degrees, and say that Trippi blamed the internet for the campaign's problems. The notes from the blogging attendees say Trippi called the campaign a "dot com miracle", and yet Reuters claims Trippi said the internet "hobbled" the campaign. These differing accounts of the same exact speech don't match at all - and it certainly looks like Reuters is the one doing the spinning here, taking a few quotes here and there out of context to make their point. With the bloggers' notes, you can see the context of what's being spoken about, and the Reuters report gives none of that. I'm not one who believes that bloggers are a "threat" to journalism, but the contrast here shows a perfect (if a bit scary) example of just how easy it is for the press to spin things to make their point.
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Transcript?
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I was there
There were a lot of reasons he mentioned, but he consistently said that the use of the internet in politics was having a profound effect on traditional politics.
He specifically mentioned how the traditional broadcast & print media wrote stories on how 'the internet' failed. His perspective is that 'broadcsat media' doesn't understand what is going on and wants it to go away. So they send the message that it is going away. Looks like Reuters is simply confirming what Trippi said.
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Re: I was there
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Trippi's speech
Readers who are interested in seeing for themselves can find the audio of the talk online
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Re: Trippi's speech
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contacting Reuters
eric.auchard@reuters.com
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