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Contributors
Hugh Hewitt - Principal Contributor
Mr.
Hewitt is senior member of theOneRepublic & CaliforniaRepublic.org
editorial board. [go to Hewitt index]
 Do
The Math
Opinions in cyberspace...
[Hugh Hewitt] 12/9/04
On Monday, Bill
Bennett wrote a great column for RealClearPolitics, which
included a kind plug for my website, but which was widely
noted in the blogosphere because of Bennett's recognition
of the rise of the New Media.
Late on Monday
night, I compared Bennett's serious writing to Washington
Post columnist E.J. Dionne's Tuesday column, which
was as weak an effort from a major columnist as I have seen
in a long time.
My point
was that the Old Media, also known as MSM or "legacy" media,
has within its ranks scores of the tired and the tenured, who
scribble their quotas of words and mail them in. In the past,
no one could really challenge their positions or their influence
except their editor, and there was no way to measure whether
anyone was actually listening.
That has
all changed, of course, and the question is whether shareholders
of the Old Media companies are going to demand that their publishers
demand that their editors exercise accountability by tracking
traffic – the number of visitors to a columnist's
column or a reporter's story or an unsigned editorial.
As print
moves toward text with amazing speed, consumers of news are
increasingly going online to obtain their stories and commentary.
They are also raising the bar, choosing to read the Belmont
Club or Little
Green Footballs for analysis of conflict in the Middle
East rather than good, old predictable Thomas Freidman.
Serious readers
aren't stuck with Frank Rich or Margaret Carlson any more,
they can go find their text elsewhere – and not just folks
who agree with them, but better, sharper opponents as well.
I'd much rather read through the online American Prospect,
the blogs at the New Republic, or Matt Yglesias than
the tired old cliches of Dionne and yesterday's big feet.
The key is
that popularity can be measured – there is a way to count
how many readers Dionne and his colleagues accumulate. No sooner
had I penned this on Monday than did blogger Doug
Ross name this proposal "metrics for journalists." He's
right. That's exactly what they are – and it would
be very useful indeed to know who is being read in what quantity.
So, which
will be the first paper to publish the traffic of their columnists
on a weekly basis? Does Dionne get 1,000 readers online, 10,000,
or 10 million, and how does that compare with Charles Krauthammer?
The insecure might stutter that such statistics won't tell
us much, but they will tell us what attracts readers to Internet
editions of newspapers.
In an increasingly
competitive world, that tells shareholders a lot. And if their
management isn't asking the question, that tells them a
lot as well.
A side note:
One critic of the Los Angeles Times is former Times
man Ken Reich, who has begun TakeBacktheTimes,
a new blog devoted to critiquing the Los Angeles Times.
Look, Patterico already
has a lock on that space, but Reich makes some interesting
points and has an insider's view. Of course, when you read
some things you laugh. For instance, Reich on balance at the
paper's editorial pages:
For
the most part, the news coverage remains fairly straight.
But the editorial pages are now as sharply to the Left
as they once were to the Right. And just as before, they
cost the paper credibility.
Now,
it has become representatives of the Jewish community
who have come downtown to remonstrate with editors over
Times editorial policy, persistently anti-Israel. But
like the Democrats of yore, many of the Jewish leaders
have concluded it is pointless to argue. Times editorial
pages are devotedly biased and are going to stay that
way for the foreseeable future.
The news
accounts devoted to politics are hopelessly way left – recall
when the Times tried to make Arizona a "swing" state
in the fall? – but Reich does nail the new Kinsely regime.
Again, if the folks at the Tribune Company are serious about
stopping the bleeding, ask for Internet traffic stats on the Times' editorials
and columnists. Max Boot will be the leader – though Scheer
has a following in the fever swamp – but the rest will
be among the most unread of writings available in cyberspace.
Unread in
cyberspace – unread anywhere. Do the math. tOR
§
theOneReublic Principal
Contributor Hugh Hewitt is an author, television commentator
and syndicated talk-show host of the Salem Radio Network's Hugh
Hewitt Show, heard in over 40 markets around the country.
He blogs regularly at HughHewitt.com and
he frequently contributes opinion pieces to the Weekly
Standard.
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