Kudos to Jason Tolbert of The Tolbert Report for catching a tweet from former U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin hinting that he might challenge Senator Blanche Lincoln in 2010. This prompted David Kinkade of The Arkansas Project and Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times to get in the game. David Sanders of Arkansas News Bureau jumped in on Twitter. Andrew DeMillo of AP already has a story. Yes, Mr. Griffin is thinking about it.
Mr. Griffin is silent on his own blog, but he does mention a recent meeting he had with Chip Saltsman, Mike Huckabee’s campaign manager and a candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee. You’ll also notice several entries on his blog about Sen. Lincoln and the “Check Card” bill that may or may not see the light of day early in the new session of Congress.
Here, Mr. Griffin speaks at the Clinton School of Public Service.
UPDATE: John Brummett has column today “breaking some hard news” that Arkansas Farm Bureau president Stanley Reed will NOT run for the Senate against Ms. Lincoln. Mr. Brummett’s still huffy at the blogosphere, of course, and has some words for the people who suggested that Mr. Reed might be considering a run. Damn you, bloggers. Damn You!
Here’s a question: What’s the difference between posting on Twitter “Heard Stanley Reed’s name mentioned as a possible U.S. Senate candidate against Sen. Blanche Lincoln” and calling around asking the same thing? Not much, I’ll submit, but please share your thoughts. You, too, Mr. Brummett.
Also, I want to remind readers that the reason the Tim Griffin story became a story yesterday was because blogger Jason Tolbert of The Tolbert Report was hanging out on Twitter when Mr. Griffin himself posted that he was considering the Senate race. Mr. Tolbert’s post (a screen cap of Mr. Griffin’s own post) prompted links from The Arkansas Times, The Arkansas Project and a “hard news” story by AP (picked up by Arkansas Business), which substantiated Mr. Tolbert’s post (and fairly credited Mr. Tolbert, the irresponsible blogger that he is, in the story.)
UPDATE II – John Brummett weighs in on this discussion in the comments section below.
Funny how the old media does not credit the new media with breaking the story.
You did get a direct link from Max on the Times blog.
A tip of my hat to Max and to Arkansas Business for noting that I broke the story!
where are my harsh words, blakester? you bright youngblood bloggers need to work on your precision. i just said old media people used to call and ask a rumor subject about the rumor directly. the difference between calling you and asking you if you are running for the senate and in posting that you might run on a blog without calling you is that one is a responsible question and the other gossipy publishing. twitter? i don’t know on the twitter. i just signed up yesterday on the twitter. then they wanted me to give ‘em e-mail addresses for people to, i don’t know, get my twitters, i guess. i couldn’t think of anybody who wanted my twitters. if there is anyone, be advised: right now i’m sittin’ here waiting’ on it to thaw a little. just took a sip of coffee. sweet dog lilly just nuzzled me with her cold nose. that may mean she needs to go do her business. will advise. good life.
Your column suggests that it was irresponsible for bloggers, including Max Brantley, to post that there was buzz brewing. I don’t agree because I think it’s newsworthy if someone of Mr. Reed’s stature has mentioned to whomever that he was interested in the race. But if your intent was not to render judgment on the bloggers who wrote about it, so be it. I just read it wrong, I guess. So did David Kinkade. But I would like your thoughts on Twitter. If a journalist gets a tip and would like to see if anyone knows has any information, he or she might put out a general Twitter post on it. Would you say that’s irresponsible? If I’m understanding your perspective, it’s that a reporter should only make one call – - to the direct source – - and nothing more. Because any conversation – - online or otherwise – - would amount to gossipy gossip. Am I misunderstanding your rationale?
fact better than rumor. fair better than unfair. that one guy hears something and asks another equally uninformed guy about it doesn’t make the rumor or their exchange worthwhile. reporter should make as many calls as it takes. but one of them should be to the guy getting talked about. that’s my rationale. little bored now. lilly does indeed need to go do her business. will then venture out myself. maybe i could just use your blog for my twitter…. just kidding. i’m gonna leave this discussion to you and your friends. bye bye. love y’all. blog on.
I think yesterday’s Tim Griffin story is a better example of how blogs can affect the news. I posted the “rumor” after hearing it from a good source (Griffin’s own twitter account.) Now, what went into this is that this is not the first time I heard this rumor being discussed from political insiders who were more in the category of saying Griffin should run (not that he will run or is considering running) but his twitter was the first time I had something in the way of proof to substantiate it. I did not rush to my laptop and post this rumor at the first time a heard, but instead I waited until I had enough to feel confident that it had merit.
Once this was posted it spread through the blogs and then through the mainstream news media like mono spreads through junior high school. The Tolbert Report got to play “Choose your News” on Kristin Fisher’s day off. Anyone who reads the stories can see that the irresponsible blogs had it right and the news media had no choice but the follow suit.
Now what process went into the Stanley Reed story, I don’t know as it was not my story. But I can say the bloggers probably do a lot more legwork than you think.
You know, if you guys are gonna have a comment party, I really wish you’d let me know.
I’m late to the game here, but wanted to weigh in on this latest front in the Arkansas battle of “Old Media” vs. “New Media” — before Brummett launches a new salvo with his soon-to-be-published critique of my and Blake’s presumed ethical shortcomings. (Stay tuned!)
I’m not one of those blog enthusiasts who gets all triumphalist and denounces working print and broadcast journalists, because I need them. The Arkansas Project doesn’t do a tremendous amount of shoe leather reporting, because that’s time and labor intensive, and I don’t get paid to do this stuff. (That’s a point that seems to get lost in this discussion. Brummett seems quick to want to impose some set of professional standards on our blogging activity. Right now, we’re a bunch of hobbyists and enthusiastic amateurs providing this content for free. That just seems like it needs to be factored into the discussion somewhere.)
So I’m glad to have the media pros who get paychecks reporting stories and tracking down info that I can share with my readers, sometimes with a little joke on the side. Sometimes, I pick up on a little buzz or rumor that I pass along. Every once in a while, we may even break a little news. But let’s not get carried away with ourselves in thinking that we’re going to displace the Andrew Demillos and Mike Wicklines and Rob Moritzes of the world with our little hobby blogs.
John seems exercised about the disparity here between “responsible” journalism and “gossipy publishing.” Lest there be any confusion on the matter, The Arkansas Project is more in the line of the latter than the former, and was always intended to be. These categories can coexist — Wonkette.com seems to coexist pretty comfortably with the Washington Post in our nation’s capital and Western civilization hasn’t collapsed.
I suspect Arkansas will survive whatever depredations The Arkansas Project visits upon the state’s information economy, but just to be on the safe side, I may need to consider posting a “FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY” flag somewhere on the site, prominently.
[...] Brummett and the Arkansas blogosphere had ended, boy, do I envy your rich and fascinating life. But the fracas continues over at Blake’s Think Tank blog, where Blake Rutherford, Jason Tolbert and I weigh in on some blogging issues, if you’re into [...]
Since I helped launch part of this little discussion — certainly with help from others — I could show up at the next SPJ meeting and submit to a full-fledged interrogation. The SPJ members could serve as a proxy Notary of the Secreto. And, perhaps Miss Fisher could do a live edition of her Web-based program covering my waterboarding at the hands of Inquisitor Generalis DeMillo. Live blogging would also be permitted.
Jason, as to the second part of the discussion about how the mainstream media – the AP in your case – didn’t give you credit for discovering Grif’s tweet — forgetaboutit.
When I revealed in my column that then-Attorney General Mike Beebe and his CoS were interviewing political consultants for the governor’s race in state facilities and on state time, the AP didn’t credit me…the Dem-Gaz did.
When I pointed out that Beebe’s gubernatorial announcement speech was written on an attorney general’s office computer, the AP refused to acknowledge that I broke the story.
Likewise, when I exposed that Beebe’s CoS was simultaneously on state and campaign payrolls, no mention from the AP. I pretty sure the Dem-Gaz credited me when she resigned from the AG’s office.
I agree with Kinkade on his points regarding the bloggers vs. print journalists with one important exception. We do need the shoe-leather straight reporting pro guys and gals, but do we need the Brummetts? The print opinion guys are different from the print reporting guys. We need the news stories to comment on, but do we need the opinion stories to comment on?
Whatever his faults, stupidity is not one of them Brummett probably realizes that he is in the niche that is most at risk from the rise of blogosphere.
Having said all that, I may be a hypocrite on this because some of my most-loved blog posts have been in response to Brummett columns.
It’s a great point, Mark. If you look at the editorial pages of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, for example, most of those columnists can be safely ignored without any loss of information. Unless you’re just fascinated by Meredith Oakley’s genealogy projects….I always look to see what Kane Webb and Mike Masterson are writing about, but most of those guys could fall into the Arkansas River and I wouldn’t notice. Thought experiment: Try to remember the last time you heard someone say, “Hey, did you read that great GENE LYONS column today?”
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
My take on the “old” vs “new” media is that the old is set in their way. They don’t understand technology let alone invest time into knowing it. Print media isn’t dead yet (they still have armies of salespeople to convince people it’s still alive) but it isn’t going to last much longer. Starting next year, technology will start to put nails in the coffin and by 2010-11 it will be like VHS. By 2015 it will be like the 8-track. It’s funny watching them run around trying to figure out a solution. Problem is, their business model ran it’s course and they haven’t got a clue how to build another one that works in this day and age. If they understood more about the properties of time they could have seen this coming. Did they actually think it would last forever? I mean what does!? But it’s too late now, they can only watch from the sidelines as the younger generation takes their market share and technology makes them obsolete.