Old Media (newspapers) vs New Media (blogs) and the fight that nobody wins.

There have been some bizarre happenings up here in the land of the midnight sun. Some tactical strikes, that at first seemed unrelated, but which now seem to have a certain unifying thread.


First there was the decision by the Anchorage Daily News to stop linking to certain progressive blogs in deference to the wishes of the Conservatives4Palin website.


Then current Alaskan Representative, and ex-columnist, Mike Doogan decided to out the anonymous blogger responsible for the wildly popular progressive site known as Mudflats.


And now since that incident the progressive blogs have all rallied around AKMuckraker, while many of the traditional media types have sided with Mike Doogan.


It seems that some in the local news media do not afford the same First Amendment rights to a citizen who writes about local malfeasance and corruption that they themselves enjoy. Even though ALL of our progressive bloggers are very careful to cite their sources and to make it crystal clear when they are reporting real facts and when they are expressing an informed opinion.


The first thing that it reminded me of was how the Bush administration made the case for torturing "enemy combatants" by saying that since they did not wear the uniform of any particular country they were not protected by the rules of the Geneva Convention.


So does that mean since I am not a paid member of the media that I am not allowed to write my thoughts on this blog without revealing my real name, my occupation, my ethnicity, my social security number, my sexual orientation or my political point of view? (Okay that last one you should be able to discern for yourself without too much difficulty.)


It the last several months we have seen the Alaskan progressive blogs explode in readership, while at the same time our local newspapers have seen a sharp decrease in subscriptions. Apparently some see a direct correlation. But nothing could be farther from the truth.


In fact we have dramatically increased the number of people who visit ADN online, or KTUU, or KTVA, or any other local news outlets that have material that we can link to when writing our post. I believe that if somebody were to take the time to study the amount of hits generated by our blogs and bring that to the attention of the owners they would quickly decide that creating a dialogue between the blogs and the news outlets would be a POSITIVE thing that could work to the benefit of all.


We certainly cannot continue to cover Alaskan politics without having dedicated professional journalists doing the initial reporting.


Though I have conducted a few interviews myself, and several of us have broken a few stories, we really do not consider ourselves journalists in the strictest sense. Perhaps commentators, or even news aggregators, would be a more fitting label.


No blogger is trying to supplant the traditional media. And if, as appearances seem to indicate, the local media has decided that they have to make a choice between supporting our free speech rights or playing nice with the Governor, than that is very, very sad indeed.


Remember, Sarah Palin is only the flavor of the month, but the blogs are here to stay.


We are completely open to working with the local media. We only ask for a little equal respect.


Every day visitors come to our sites and judge them, not on who we are, but on how we write.


Is it too much to ask the journalists of our state to do the same?