2008 Campaign Special: Web Beats Print

By: Joe Strupp Imagine if the Los Angeles Times' Andrew Malcolm had been writing a blog in 1968, when he broke into political coverage. Chances are, that blog would have been the first place the newspaper posted insider reaction to Lyndon Johnson's sudden withdrawal from the race ? and on-the-scene reports from the raucous Democratic convention in Chicago. It's even possible that long-shot challengers Eugene McCarthy and George Wallace might have gotten more votes in a "grassroots" media environment. Who knows? Richard M. Nixon might have lost the November election, had a mainstream blogger uncovered one of his many dirty tricks.

"There would have been more information available to readers, and sooner," says Malcolm, who has been writing full time for the Los Angeles Times' "Top of the Ticket" blog since June. "Wallace would have done better because he could have reached more people sooner. You would have seen developments sooner."

Today, Malcolm's online reporting and many others' like it do offer such information sooner ? perhaps even too much of it. He is operating in a whole new world in which deadlines are minute-by-minute; reader comment is swift and often severe; and the tools range from audio and video to BlackBerrys and laptops.

"It is 'round the clock ? it's demanding," says Malcolm, 64. Not only is the process of delivering political news via blogs a lot faster than traditional models, "it is a lot more unpredictable," he adds.

Yet it remains something newspapers are embracing as the 2008 presidential campaign hits its stride and the primaries loom. Campaign blogs were once left to partisans and non-journalists; now, along with the L.A. Times, at least five other daily papers have assigned to political blogs full-time reporters who post and edit items almost daily. Dozens of other newspapers have reporters posting regularly, on a part-time basis.

"You allow the junkie to have his fix. It is an online newsreel, a conversation vessel for this sort of news," says Michael Tackett, Washington bureau chief of "The Swamp," the Chicago Tribune's popular politics blog launched two years ago. The site takes a true anything-goes approach in which gossip items, full-blown political scoops, and trivia share space with campaign-ad videos, revealing radio interviews, and virtually any kind of campaign-related image online editors can get their hands on.

Then there's Chris Cillizza, a full-timer at The Washington Post's blog "The Fix." Among the first (since 2005) and best-known political bloggers, he often appears on CNN and MSNBC, among other TV outlets. And on his blog, the weekly FixCam offers a video of Cillizza, a former Roll Call reporter, giving insight on the races. He also moderated a MySpace/MTV online debate in late September.

"The freedom of it is awesome," he says. "I can write about anything each day, and there is an instant reaction."

The proof, though, is in the traffic: Most of the sites rank high on the blog popularity scale. At the Los Angeles Times, "Top of the Ticket" places third among that paper's 27 blogs, with some 200,000 page views per month. "The Caucus," The New York Times' year-old campaign blog, leads traffic among that paper's 40 blogs. (The Times declined to release specific Web numbers to E&P.)

Several newspaper political bloggers contend they can stand out from their online brethren because they bring, in most cases, a non-partisan credibility they feel is missing at most independent outlets on the Net.

Mark Memmott, who blogs full time at USA Today's "OnPolitics" site, says, "We are not going to go down the opinion road. I don't think that is the plan."

"Because it is connected, we have the same standards as the newspaper and we are well sourced," says Kate Phillips, who blogs and edits full time for the Times blog. "The advantage we have is the experience of the reporting."

Although the blog approach to information delivery ? widely known for its rules-be-damned, get-it-up-yesterday aesthetic ? appeals to political writers of all types, there's also more fact-checking to be found at newspaper blogs.

But are these newspaper-connected blogs really giving readers something more than an online story or column? And can they compete with such niche political Web sites as Politico.com or partisan blogs that may eschew sourcing and other standard journalistic rules?

"The newspaper blog can't be any more influential than a newspaper column," claims James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist who oversaw Bill Clinton's 1992 victory and is now a CNN commentator. "It is another way for a newspaper to look a little more contemporary, but I don't know the difference between a newspaper blog and a newspaper column."

Still, those who run the blogs and write for them claim this method of delivery is here to stay ? and provides a valuable outlet for uploading tidbits and gossip items, as well as proving the fastest route for a breaking story or scoop. Says Phillips, "It involves reader engagement, and it really riles the electorate."

Posting scoops great and small
When The Boston Globe broke the story in June that Bill Clinton would begin campaigning (with Sen. Hillary Clinton) in New Hampshire for the first time since his own 1992 campaign, the story was not scooped in the print pages or even the regular online news columns. Blogger James Pindell had it on one of the Globe's two political blogs, "The Primary Source." That same month, he also posted Sen. Barack Obama's debate talking points hours before a New Hampshire face-off with other candidates.

But along with those notable scoops, Pindell's blog has also broken less-than-monumental stories. Those include revelations that Hillary Clinton had once visited Dartmouth College on a blind date; that senators Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd shared a plane ride from Washington, D.C.; and that an Obama book club had launched in New Hampshire.

Such is the mixed bag that is today's political blog.

Pindell, a former Des Moines Register and Indianapolis Star reporter who also ran a New Hampshire-based political Web site from 2002 to 2006, is under contract to work full time for the site at least until the New Hampshire primary, and perhaps longer. For him, the blog is the perfect way to get both the top and bottom-level stories out. "I cover the campaigns the same way [as a newspaper reporter]," says Pindell, 28, of his approach. "I love political journalism. I love covering the great political stories, and if I do that on a blog or in the paper, I don't care."

And with the 2008 presidential campaign having kicked off earlier than ever, Pindell and others claim the blogs are needed to catch all aspects of the race, and aid in competing with non-newspaper outlets. "When you have smaller stuff, it is an appropriate place for people to check every day," he says. "It allows me, every day, to use tidbits. Who did a candidate invite to a debate? Why? Things that are not important to the regular coverage." Mark Memmott at USA Today agrees: "You can give the reader the sense that you are on top of things."

When third-quarter fundraising totals came out in early October, USA Today ran a story on Oct. 1 about Barack Obama's $20 million haul, but didn't have Hillary Clinton's numbers until a day later. When the news that she had raised $22 million was revealed on the morning of Oct. 2, Memmott posted the information on the blog, giving it the fastest route to the public. Still, he found time a day later for the somewhat less groundbreaking story of the Republican Party unveiling its logo for the 2008 convention in Minneapolis: a blue-and-white elephant.

In November, Cillizza's story that Pat Robertson had endorsed Rudy Giuliani made even his own newspaper's top political staff take a new look at the power of the site.

Nearly every politics blogger has examples of stories that were broken on their site, from the major developments to such minor items as the L.A. Times' report of John McCain's wife revealing her husband was a "remote control freak." But is this news?

"The attitude is that politics are important, entertaining, and that the people who do it treat it as a game, often," says Malcolm. "We need to understand that, as we watch as spectators."

Local spin becomes key
And it's not just the major and mid-sized papers that have been bitten by the campaign-blogger bug. Smaller dailies such as The Sun News of Myrtle Beach, S.C.; the Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal; and The Courier of Waterloo, Iowa, have part-time posters every bit as committed, staffers say.

"It is local politics, but anything national that comes through our area, we take," says Lisa Fleisher, the 24-year-old monitor of the Sun News' "PoliTick-Tock" blog. "If a candidate is going to come through, I write a story, then grab some items for the blog."

One such tidbit was as basic as John McCain's visit with Fleisher on a campaign bus swing through the state. As he flipped through television channels while speaking with Fleisher, he kept bypassing golf programming, declaring "I hate golf." Before posting that bit of info, Fleisher reminded him of Myrtle Beach's large golfing industry.

Among the items Courier blogger Charlotte Eby has posted in recent months on her "Iowa Insider" blog was the speaking order for candidates attending state Sen. Tom Harkin's annual Steak Fry, along with the number of media credentials issued for the event: 102. At the Union Leader in Manchester, N.H., blogger Drew Cline linked to the latest John McCain TV advertisements in September, saying they were "really good," even though both commercials got the paper's name wrong.

"It does take more time than people think," says Eby, who is the Des Moines reporter for five Lee Enterprises papers around Iowa but blogs only at the Courier site. "I still have to write stories, and we are getting slammed out here with candidates. I try to do it three to five times a week." Eby, a state capital reporter since 2003, says her blog can compete with the big papers because it gives a true local approach: "People who vote in the caucuses are not reading the New York Times or the Washington Post. We can put a local spin on it." But she contends that some readers also want the Iowa flavor in the blogs, noting, "I see plenty of links to my site outside Iowa."

Anjeanette Damon, the Gazette-Journal's blogger at "Inside Nevada Politics," says the blog is getting more attention as the Nevada caucuses move up to become the third presidential primary event, after Iowa and New Hampshire. Her blog is the third most popular of the paper's 16 blogs (a dog blog leads the pack). "I do it daily, sometimes at night or on weekends, but I enjoy it," she says. "It is like a conversation, and it does not take as much context as a story because it is for people who know the context."

Although Damon and Eby have to juggle blogging with regular reporting, each sees it as an advantage in getting news out quickly. Says Damon, "If I have a busy reporting day, I can feed stuff to the blog."

Taking a pitch before the swing
But for many of the blogs, getting information up more quickly can also lead to a lack of editing and errors. Several news- paper bloggers admit they are able to post items on their own, with editorial oversight often coming after an item is up. "It gets back-read, so you have to get people with a little bit of [editorial] experience into these positions," says USA Today's Memmott.

Dick Polman, a former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and still blogs part time for the paper's political site, says that rush to post can sometimes be too much: "Blogs really expect you to be up with something right away, every time a candidate coughs. It pays to take a step back and break in and think."

Jack Germond, the retired Washington columnist who wrote for The Washington Star and The Sun of Baltimore, also has concerns about the speed factor. "I'm glad I didn't have it when I was reporting," he says. "It can tempt you to write something too soon. A lot of stories blow up on the fourth phone call."

But as the blogs give newspapers a new entree into the wild worlds of both the Internet and national politics, they also find themselves affecting the way campaigns are covered ? and overseen.

Pindell of the Globe sees a definite change in the approach campaigns use to get information out via the blogs; he gets dozens of pitches for stories each day. "Ninety-five percent of the stuff I reject because it is pointless or factless," he says. But the Chicago Tribune's Frank James, a full-timer at "The Swamp," welcomes the avalanche of campaign information. "Campaigns send us a lot of stuff," he admits. "But one of the things I like is that it gives people on either side a place to come and have at each other."

Phillips of "The Caucus" says the campaigns are sophisticated enough to know how to pitch items ? and just as important, how to respond. "All of the campaigns have Internet directors and Internet units," she says, noting that those campaigns "do a lot of outreach and some of them really pay attention to our blog efforts." She says campaign leaders are often more willing to respond to a blog item they see than an actual call or e-mail seeking comment: "The react is very strong, and they do respond. And it is quicker."

Then there is the workload demand, speed, and fierce competition. Nearly every blogger who spoke with E&P pointed to the piling-on of stories and tidbits as the least enviable part of their work day. "It does add more to the job, but we have to stay competitive," says Carla Marinucci, a senior political writer at the San Francisco Chronicle's "Spin Cycle" blog. "We always want to get things up right away." On Nov. 18, a "Doonesbury" strip satirizing workaholic campaign bloggers made this point.

The bloggers' print-oriented campaign colleagues, such as the New York Times' Adam Nagourney, have their own opinions of the online reports. Nagourney says that having to read so many blogs makes for a heavier workload: "One downside is that there is a glut of material. In a weird way, it lessens the impact." Still, he is not above tossing a scoop out via "The Caucus" to beat the competition, such as when he was leaked a memo from the Hillary Clinton campaign arguing for her to skip Iowa.

A 'liberating' approach
But it's more than just the speed and variety of items posted that set these sites apart from newspapers' other political news. The reporters who man these sites say the freedom to try new ideas and approaches is more creative than anything else on the Web, and certainly than in print.

"I find it quite liberating. The blog is a totally different audience," declares M.E. Sprengelmeyer, a bureau reporter for Denver's Rocky Mountain News who for months has been writing an Iowa-based political blog along with his regular reporting duties. "It is a lot more irreverent, but still 99% original reporting."

Sprengelmeyer cites as an example his approach to the Sept. 26 Democratic debate in New Hampshire. As a way to connect the event to his hometown readers, the reporter convinced Congressman Tom Tancedo, a Denver Republican, to blog about the debate as he watched it on television. "We try to go a little off-kilter," Sprengelmeyer says.

Political bloggers also have no shame in posting the most bizarre, embarrassing, funniest videos or audio clips. The Globe's Pindell had no hesitation in posting a McCain commercial video highlighting the fact that a major "supporter" in the spot was a former McCain campaign worker.



Let it roll, baby, roll
Among the most unusual aspects of the new campaign blog world is how much these Web sites share with each other. The mandatory "blogroll," which lists a blog's fellow ? and competing ? sites, is a natural step to take out in the blogosphere. But among newspapers it's a bit unusual, even treasonous in some circles.

If the New York Times 20 years ago was writing about Michael Dukakis' campaign, would it have inserted a note telling you to check on the Washington Post's coverage? Probably not. But this is not 1987, and the blogs indicate that more than anything. "There is a culture on the Internet, it is very insider," says Pindell in Boston.

Memmott says such sharing is another sign of the blogging world affecting coverage, and a way of building reader trust: "It may seem odd to point them to other people's reporting, but if it is important and we don't have it yet, you can build that trust that you are looking for information. Part of the role is surveillance; what does CNN or the Times have?"

As an example, an Oct. 4 USA Today item on its "OnPolitics" blog about Jeri Thompson, the wife of former Sen. Fred Thompson, linked to related stories at FoxNews. com, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and even referenced People magazine.

Marinucci at the Chronicle notes that when you link to others, they also link to you, driving up your own traffic. "These items can get spun and picked up out there," she says, citing a posting she had in May about John Edwards receiving a $55,000 fee to speak to a University of California audience about, of all things, poverty. "It got thousands of hits in a matter of hours."



Will it pay in Peoria?
Most Web editors say the blogs are getting advertising, but little of it is directed at their content. Typically there aren't any rules against a candidate buying up space on a particular blog for weeks at a time ? perhaps because so far, it hasn't happened.

"Politics is not the easiest thing in the world to sell," says James Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com. "Campaign people will buy it, but the bigger [ad buyers] would rather be in business, technology, or health and lifestyle." Few campaigns, he says, buy specific placement in the political blogs.

Juliana Jaoudi, managing director of sales and marketing for latimes.com, agrees. "There is a perception that political campaigns are still more comfortable with traditional media," she says. "You don't see a lot of political advertising on the Web." Will this change in the heat of the campaign? Jaoudi is unsure.

But John Temple, editor and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver ? where the 2008 Democratic National Convention will be held ? says his state's 2006 elections showed him that campaign managers value the newspaper Web ad, including those that run on blogs. Although no campaigns have ponied up to buy space specifically on his paper's "Backroads to the White House" politics blog, he contends, "my experience in '06 tells me we will get them."

So who is actually visiting these sites? Those tending the political blog garden disagree. Some say it is the hard-core campaign junkie who already knows who he or she wants to support, but enjoys the insider items and gossip. Others claim average voters are scanning their blogs for news and information along with the newspaper.

The blog community at the Boston Globe "is not interested in issues ? it is an elite audience that often has its mind made up," declares Pindell. "They are going there because they love the sport of politics, obsessed by the process." Phillips at the New York Times agrees: "There are definitely people who are involved in politics, who are junkies. But I see people log in from all over the place."

Cillizza says, "There are two distinct audiences: the insider crowd, but also a lot of people who aren't in that crowd but are just interested in politics. This gives them an outlet for it."

Most of the bloggers say they need to offer little, if any, response to readers, noting that most are just talking among themselves. "If there is something posed directly at me, I weigh in," says Cillizza. "But I don't think they necessarily want it monitored by me." He adds that there is no formal monitoring of comments, but the Web site recently required registration of reader commentors to avoid spammed duplicative comments unrelated to topics: "It is another bar against people just spamming stuff in."

USA Today's Memmott has posted items that have received as many as 1,000 comments or reader postings. But, as with Cillizza, few are seeking his comment. "About 99% do not require a response," he says. "It is people having conversations or adding material. I only weigh in if I think I can add to the conversation."