GOP Convention: A Laboratory for New Media

The GOP convention this week provides an excellent laboratory in which to examine the role of bloggers and other new media. It's not that earlier conventions weren't covered by talk radio or cable news (in fact, you'll have to turn to FNC, CNN, or C-SPAN for most of the action, including tonight's speeches, since the networks are limiting their coverage). What will be new, of course, is the presence of so many bloggers post-Swift Vets. I think they'll play a significantly greater role in covering the convention and the antics of anti-war mobs than bloggers did in Boston during the Democratic convention for the same reason blogging has taken off in the first place: their adversarial relationship to the mainstream press. Hugh Hewitt and the Captain's Quarters are only two among many superb analysts I'll be reading this week.

Those organs that fawned all over the Kerry camp up in Boston -- the Times, the Post, the Globe, the wire services, the networks -- will no doubt turn a selectively close eye to the GOP in NYC. I say selectively because, for every story they scrutinize, they're bound to ignore others either from ignorance or malice. (John Podhoretz has an insightful column on the old media's blindness to the new players in today's NY Post.) And that's where the bloggers (plus talk radio and cable news) come in. Because many of them share at least some of the President's agenda, they are likely to have plenty of grist for their mills as the week rolls along.

Here are some blog-related developments to look for this week from NYC:

1. The behavior of demonstrators: Will the demonstrators get violent with police and/or destroy property? And will the mainstream press cover it to the same degree as the bloggers might? We know that the old media consistently play down the size of crowds at, say, anti-abortion rallies while playing up opposing events, or that they ignore the wilder elements in gay pride parades while exposing only the unexposed. Those prejudices will be more difficult to get away with this week.

2. Splits among conservatives: Big media always love in-fighting on the right, and not so long ago we had to suffer through the expertise of chameleons like Kevin Phillips and David Gergin to give the "conservative" side of the argument. There was the traditional conservative press, of course, but it was neither instantaneous nor distributed widely enough to counter the defeatist nonsense from the media's favorite spokesmen for what they viewed as the right. Today, the new media can cover those splits more accurately and intelligently. Small fights won't easily be labeled civil wars, and the real splits on the right can be examined with significantly greater knowledge brought to bear on the real causes and effects of such disagreements. (Brent and I commented on one such split here and here.)

3. The tone of the convention. This overlaps some with point #2 above. Many media commentators love to refer to anyone to the right of Michael Bloomberg as "far right," "hard right," or "fundamentalist." Therefore, it follows that just about anyone to Bloomberg's right who delivers a speech will be "divisive," "hate-filled," "intolerant," and "partisan." New media can ensure that the contents of any speech are not drowned out by partisan commentary from self-declared objective reporters. And, for the same reasons they can cover intra-party splits more accurately than most old media folks -- knowledge of the issues -- they'll most likely have a better angle on the overall tone of the affair.

4. Comments from the floor. Dan Rather's comments from the Garden are getting significant attention, but he'll have real competition for breaking real stories once things are under way. Put it this way: If you were a conventioneer on the floor or in a bar, to whom would you feel more comfortable speaking: A network lackey with an axe to grind (the better to chop off your head), or a blogger or talk radio host you trust?

Put on your lab coat and keep tuning in.