Bloggers and MSM
See? If you wear a chicken suit and hold a politically charged sign, the mainstream media will flock to you!
Way to go, Shelbinator!
Atlanta Press Club new media panel wrap-up
Last night, Rusty and I attended an Atlanta Press Club event entitled “New Media”: The Changing Media Landscape. Panelists were Mark Bauer, WSB-TV; Lea Donosky, AJC; Lila King, CNN I-Reporting Team; John Patton, ThePort Network; and it was moderated by Grayson.
The room was packed with people from a variety of traditional media backgrounds, public relations, marketing, and even a few people who just wandered in off the street out of curiosity. Oh, and a bunch of us bloggers sitting in the front row (in addition to a few other bloggers in other parts of the room). J. Brotherlove asked what the median age was of the audience, but it’s hard to say because it was really all over the place. One woman who spoke up and asked a question was a recent college graduate; there were other audience members who had 30+ years experience in the media industry. The room also had a surprising degree of gender and racial diversity.
I “live-twittered” the event to an extent. Most of those tweets showed up in yesterday’s daily Twitter digest posting, and the rest will show up tonight. I also took a bunch of notes in a sort of old-school live-blogging exercise, which I’ll scan and post later.
Grayson did a wonderful job of making the event very unconference-like. I got the feeling that this surprised some of the audience members who may have been expecting a more traditional question-and-answer routine from moderator to panelists, but people got the hang of it quickly and soon were speaking up with nearly as much zeal as at PodCamp Atlanta. Grayson and the panelists kept a good handle on things, not letting any of it spiral out of control (and there was one audience member who, had she gotten her way, I think would have willingly led us all down a dark path of unadulterated blog-bashing).
Overall, I think the event went well. There were a few audience members who were seriously rude and antagonistic, but a pleasant surprise (and in contrast to last week’s Social Media Club event) was that the panelists themselves were open-minded, eager to learn – and willing to call bullshit when they heard it. And they did, in response to some of those aforementioned audience members!
It wasn’t all roses, though, and I’m not going to sit here and give everybody a cookie just because it managed not to come to blows. There were a lot of people in that room who just did not get it (blogs are “entertainment” and apparently bloggers are obsessed with Lindsay Lohan?) and frankly need to wake up and answer the clue phone. There were people who apparently think it’s fine and dandy to say extremely rude, dismissive things about the entire spectrum of blogging, and then expect bloggers to bend over backwards to hand them content and do hard work for them.
But, all in all, it was one of the most productive discussions of this kind that I’ve participated in. I’m hoping that things will continue to get better.
I’ll write more later, going into more detail of specific things that happened and things that were said. Just wanted to get an overview post up for now, though.
Here is the podcast of the event, on the Georgia Podcast Network.
Other posts about the event:
- Rusty: Atlanta Press Club panel podcast/thoughts
- Amani Channel: Hangin’ Out At The Atlanta Press Club
- Griftdrift: Facing the Beast, A Blogger Answers A Few Questions, and A Question For The Traditional Journalists
- Grayson: Shout-Out To MY Social Network Peeps
- Sara: Blogger Navel Gazing
Update: Sara’s post articulates some of the problems I had with many audience members’ assumptions last night. I’ll still probably write about this more later.
Thoughts on the Atlanta Press Club debates
Tonight, Rusty and I went to watch the secretary of state and Democratic governor debates live and in-person at the Georgia Public Broadcasting studios. It was an interesting experience – very different than watching the debates on TV. The biggest thing was how disconcerting it was to see that Mark Taylor never once made eye contact with Cathy Cox, or gave her any kind of visual recognition, for that matter; you wouldn’t pick this up just watching it on TV. It was also great to be able to see the panelists’ reactions to some of the candidates’ answers.
The gubernatorial candidates’ debate was the final debate of the night, but I’m going to talk about it first. Who knew that there are four candidates running for governor? The other two are Mac McCauley and Bill Bolton. McCauley is an old codger who, if nothing else, at least openly supports same-sex marriage and equal protection under the law for LGBT citizens. But that’s about all he’s got going for him. Now, Bolton? Man, was that guy a hoot! He gave Rusty and me some of our biggest giggle fits of the night. He is a serious nutjob, there’s no other way to put it! His platform included legally sanctioned ghettoes for violent criminals, support of substandard medical care for the poor, and the proposition to divide our country into two parts: “God nation” and “JJ Land” (Jackson and Jefferson, that is). He also spent a lot of time talking about his 4 failed marriages.
Oh, but you want to hear about Cox and Taylor? Well, what is there to say, really. Taylor had some decent things to say about his plans for healthcare reform (I like his proposed Peachcare for Kids program), but generally he came off as someone you couldn’t trust as far as you could nudge. Cox seemed a little vitriolic at times in direct response to Taylor, which started to grate on my nerves after a while, but then again I can’t say I really blame her, given some of the things he’s said about her. I like Cox’s support for transit options and alternative energy sources, but the whole same-sex marriage bungle is still a sore spot. Nevertheless, if I have to pick a winner in the debate, I’d say it was Cox.
Overall, though, I thought the secretary of state debates were more interesting than the Democratic governor debates. This was mainly because of the stark contrast between the Democratic and Republican candidates. The Democratic candidates’ debate remained civil and focused on the issues that a secretary of state will actually have to deal with. They discussed business, oversight and regulation of certain occupations, voter registration, electronic voting paper trails, investment fraud, and historic preservation. (Oh, and boxing.) Not once did any of the Democratic candidates attack one another, or mention Republicans. Overall I was pleasantly surprised with the debate, considering the trend I’ve come to expect of pandering to the lowest common denominator. I thought Reddy came out the winner of that debate, although Holcomb was a close second.
But, the Republican secretary of state candidates? What a sad scene that debate was! It would’ve been painful watching those bumbling clowns, if it hadn’t been so amusing. I sincerely believe Eric Martin and Charley Bailey were unaware of their surroundings half the time. What were the topics of relevance to the secretary of state’s office that the Republican candidates discussed? Gay marriage, domestic partnership benefits, abortion, and illegal immigration (including Bailey’s proposition to “round ‘em up and send ‘em back where they came from”). We also heard (and rightly so) about Bill Stephens’s ethics violations, to which he responded by saying that any politician who talks about his or her “values” is a jerk, because we’re all just people. Then he proceeded to turn around and talk about his values, and decry the “activist judges” (yes, he used that phrase) that were getting in the way of discriminatory legislation. He also said something about sending Cynthia McKinney to jail, but to Bailey’s credit, at least he called Stephens on his bullshit with that one, pointing out that Stephens has no jurisdiction to arrest anyone.
Although Karen Handel’s repeated assertion that she was a “strong conservative Republican” who opposed abortion rights and same-sex marriage made me bristle, she won the debate hands-down. She was the only one who didn’t sound like an absolute idiot. She was professional and her answers were (relatively) articulate, and at least she was upfront and consistent in her stance on the irrelevant-to-the-position-of-secretary-of-state issues. Creative Loafing agrees with me that Reddy vs. Handel would make an interesting race.
All in all, it was an enlightening, amusing, and occasionally infuriating evening. I’d definitely be interested in going to more of these live debates. I’ll just need to remember to bring some Excedrin along next time, because by the end of it all, I had a pretty massive headache.