I attended the 'Role of Media in Politics' panel in the afternoon session of the summit with Booman himself to go see what fellow blogger and Philadelphian Duncan Black had to say. eRobin was also there, but I didn't see her, there were about forty or fifty people in the room. Her take towards the end of this post.
Senior writer for the Daily News Dave Davies was up first. He spoke of how [normal beat?] reporters do not have enough time to fully investigate stories. He said that there were basically three types of political reporting the horserace, he said she said and a third which I didn't remember as I was taking photos while he spoke [arg]. He noted that at his paper, there were just recenly major cutbacks, this will undoubtedly make good reporting even harder. He seemed visibly pissed off about Knight-Ridder's adherence to the bottom line and abandoning the need for people on the street for good journalism [and thereby having people buy the fucking papers]. He spoke of the swift-boating of Sen. John Kerry [a.k.a. Guy Smiley] specifically and how he/the media didn't have time to fully investigate the issue and how they had to simply report it without checking out the entire story. Blech. He said that they could not not report it because it was so important. It didn't help that Kerry didn't sack up and quash the whole fucking thing. The damage was done.
Next up was Inquirer consultant and Editor Emeritus and living legend Acel Moore. I first read about Moore in this PW cover story by Kia Gregory. Quite an accomplished career tirelessly writing for forty years. He spoke of diversity in the newsroom and diversity in Congress. He noted that there were zero blacks in Congress when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, but now, there are currently twenty-seven in the House and one in the Senate. Still vastly underrepresented, but a start. He wants more. So do I. I went up to Moore after the panel to say hello and he was quite nice and took a few minutes to chat with me. He even invited me to send him an email and I did, but the damn thing got bounced back, arg.
Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky was next up, former Congresswoman (PA-13) and current Chair and co-founder of, Women's Campaign International. She also touched on the subject of underrepresentation in Congress with only fifty women currently serving. She was a reporter in DC and Philadelphia and spoke of her transition from journalism to politics. She said that after she was elected, she still didn't know what a reporter wanted from a politician even after being one for so long. She also spoke of the shouting matches on TV these days and how she was recently in one with Kate O'Beirne who wrote the book Women Who Make the World Worse. I guess O'Beirne is all pissy she's doing so well. Putting a reputable source like Margolies-Mezvinsky on TV next to a crackhead like O'Beirne gives O'Beirne unwarranted clout. Duncan touched on this during the Q&A session.
Senior Meida Matters fellow and blogger a.k.a. Atrios, Duncan Black took the stage last [giving the blogger the shaft or the spotlight?]. He spoke of the shaping of narratives of stories we see, hear and read today and how having very opinionated [that's a nice word] people on shows like Meet the Press and the like sitting next to objective [well, they're supposed to be] journalists is very confusing to the casual viewer. Adding in loonies like O'Lielly, Hannity and Matthews only makes things worse. It was interesting to see someone I have drinks with every week up on a panel like that.
All in all, I had a great time at the summit. It was great to finally meet eRobin and to see again ACM, Tulin and Booman. And a special thanks to Tulin for forwarding my info to the powers that be who got me 'credentialed' for the event. Still a little sore about not getting an actual badge and was subsequently badgered over and over again for not having a badge - I eventually just sat in the empty room for an hour until the event started. Oh well.
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