Lisa Stone moderates closing discussion with Carol Jenkins of the Women's Media Center, Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes and WowOWow.com, Liz Mair of the RNC, and Mary Ann Akers of the Washington Post.
Women who blog have moved well beyond the political echo chamber of 2004.
Blogging has changed the political process.
On Blogher, more than 2000 blogs are listed in politics, last year it was 379.
7 of 10 biggest posts for the year are about politics or the economy.
Only posts that get more hits than Michelle Obama when she writes on BlogHer are posts about Sarah Palin.
Lesley Stahl of 60 minutes Started Wow Oh Wow Media TV was the center of her candidates' day. She was the center of her candidates' universe. Now it's blogging. It has hurt tv. They are no tthe center of the universe anymore bloggers are.
Liz Mair - RNC's online communications director. She's in this role, she has an online comm manager who assists her.
There's constant outreach, communicating with bloggers of all stripes. People ahve it in their heads that being republicans they focus on the conservative blogosphere. That's not necessarily true. They communicated with progressives as well. John McCain does like communicating with bloggers, even in the beginning of the campaigning.
The ability of bloggers to drive stories forward that start small and wouldn't attract attention of main stream journalists. She's confident sh won 't get much sleep next 22 days.
Lisa introduces Carol Jenkins, Founding president of Women's Media Center - in the past has referred to women as invisible majority. Asks her, do we hurt ourselves as woman and bloggers in some of these conversations?
What this year has shown us is how unaccustomed we are to looking at women and people of color. Nation run by white men. Woman and man of color running for president, first time as a nation we've had to pay attention to either. Lack of experience in that: what resulted was embarrassing behavior. What they said was "Americans are a generation of teenaged boys." First saw this when Katie Couric became an anchor of network news show. Got call from woman reporter. She says, "Carol what did you think about the legs?"
Carol: It''s a lack of knowledge and information. Never before have Americans had to pay attention to a woman or person of color so it's learning everything.
What we're learning in age of personal is political, you cannot distance yourself from goings-on of this election cycle. They have analyzed a lot of the coverage.
Sarah Palin entering race has changed things again. Photo of Sarah Palin with boy loooking up the back of her skirt. Inappropriate behavior. When will it stop?
Lisa: Are bloggers part of the problem or can we be the solution ? Are we being spun?
Mary Ann Akers: There are some bloggers who can be part of the problem. Some can be very much part of the solution. She believes it's better to have more information than less. She likes that there are all of these voices - on "The Google," as President Bush calls it - it's a great thing. The blogs that have erroneous information, that don't have well-reported or reported at all information will fall by the wayside.
The good outweighs the bad. In terms of spinning - most interesting was the day Sarah Palin was chosen by John McCain, DailyKos ran "Sarah is not Baby Trig's mother." It looked like a very thoroughly researched piece on Kos, showing Bristol look like she was president at about the time Palin would have given birth. There qwas no evidence in the end at all to suggest it was true. We still actually have to do reporting. Even though blog is pejorative term with old guard in journalism, it's just a platform. We're still reporting. We can have more fun, voice, style but still it's reporting. That example comes to mind when I think of some of the spinning that's out there. Some of the wild stuff on the blogs that can seep into mainstream political coverage had huge impact.
Lisa wants Lesley and Carol to coment on whether bloggers are part of the problem or solution.
Lesley: this is a baby industry and it's having growing pains. Maybe we'll always have wild rumors. Is it ever going to be policed? There will be a sorting out eventually but it's kind of thrilling that this sorting out will take place in a natural way. Hopefully there won't be a policeman, maybe there will be a directory, Good Housekeeping seal of approval, but it's the good, the bad and ugly.
One of the things that has bothered me for years now is we're all the salad bowl together and we're all mixed up. What the hell is the MSM anyway? You can go on a cable news show and find people who've worked on the campaigns. Karl Rove. Pat Buchanan. People who worked in Clinton White HOuse. Theyu're MSM, what the public thinks of it. She's sure that those of us who are responsible bloggers get annoyed when you see someone spreading ugly rumors because you get tarred with that brush as well. It cold take two more election cycles, maybe. Maybe we'll become more discerning media.
Carol: They call it embedded punditry. We cannot tell anymore what's news and what's opinion. This blurring that happens everywhere in the blogosphere: reporters are expected to give their opinion. They used to try to be objective. Now the facts have a spin. When people are complaining about MSM she htinks they're complaining about pundits. Fact-checking: so much is available now. You have information at your fingertips now that you used to have to wait hours for. Dinner with Norma Quarles, was on presidential debate panel with Ferraro. She got the call the day before that she was going to be on the next day. Then she had to call up NBC and ask a researcher there to go through system and find what she needed for the debate. Don't have to do that now. When you write, use those facts that are available to you. A rumor you start in good faith can have tragic results.
Lisa Stone: Blogging is like the printing press. Printing went from the Gutenberg Bible straight into pornography. What does a complete false rumor take to blow up into news? Let's pretend it's 4 years now, we have learned, Erin Kotecki-Vest talked about this. Blogher is nonpartisan even though bloggers are not. They have found that both campaigns are incredibly responsive. She thinks they've seen OBama campaign using Twitter and e-mail in ways they wouldn't have predicted. In an Obama presidency, is a candidate who uses Twitter and e-mail for direct outreach going to be able to spin his policy and agenda? What responsibility do we have as bloggers to debunk that sort of thing?
Maryane: Great for engaging young voters, 1000s in a serious way that they weren't able to in last election. Campaign officials tweeting during debate. Posting things on FB, using all tools available to them to reach as many people as they possibly can. IT's an amazing thing they have and a good thing.
Lesley" Pres have been manipulating us since the bg of time. Whoever is preisent will keep up w/ the latest mani tool Whoever gets to the WH from now on is going to try to stay on top of technology and wehre it goes. On eof the resasn she wante to be connected with WowOHWow, this is the future and be preapared for them to try to play with your minds because that'sz what they do.
MA: It's all propaganda, right Liz?
Liz: I'm a total propagandist. Both candidates are trying to communicate with people through social media. She pushes to get female surrogates and supporters of John McCain to go on BlogHer and guest post. Either way people are very engaged in it, certainly something Republican party if committed to.
Lisa: Fascinating to see campaign going directly to consumers. Incredible response. Her moment of "holy cow" was when Carly Fiorina said in response to a question from a user about how Clinton was treated, Fiorina said that how Clinton was treated was awful.
Audience:
Innovation Diva: The future, different voices in the campaign. The blogosphere has enabled us to bring out different voices and facts again. These voices are not always able to break thorugh all the buzz. How do you find good information versus what is not true?
Carol: Use to be you'd go to my site and my site alone. Now everyone is connected. You just need to go to sites you respect and see what they're linking to. She's friends on Facebook to talk to her friends' grandchildren.
Kate You talk about how campaigns are twittering, blogging, Facebooking. Where does that end? In four years, will we have president tweeting "Up late last night, working on foreign policy?" Just because we're talking doesn't mean we're really communicating.
Lisa: When does information become non-information.
Lesley: You just have to watch television, sorry. (laughter.)
Mary Ann: Great question. Reporters were told to tweet, use Facebook. She felt like a moron going halfway through, tweeting, "can you believe he just said 'my friends' again?" How many times can I say that? I was thinking, is this a fad? How much longer do we have to do this Twitter thing? It's interesting. I like the concept. In four years will it be as big of a deal. Four years from now we're not going to have evolved into short, tweeting little people. We're still gonna want to read interesting things that are reported thoroughly. Want to know what is on the blogs is good solid information.
Lesley: Distressing because truth is it takes a lot of money to have the kind of depth in a news organization to do enterprise pieces, kind of background that produces a deeply information piece that a democracy needs to give its citizens to make smart decisions.
How much information, particularly in political campaigns, is imparted?
Lisa: I was a FOIA print reporter. Left and came online. When she was at CNN could never pull down attention that major political blogs have. Amazed at engagement on political blogs.
What can be done to make bloggers move past "red white and blue bikini" problem?
Liz: have some sense of ethics, not necessarily in way journalists, would, but check your facts. Easy to send "oh so and so voted this way on a bill," could easily go off and write 600 words on how horrible that is. Bloggers want to be treated seriously and credibly have a responsibility to do that. Bigger bloggers well read, writing very good posts, providing good content, that's what they're doing. It's not a cut, copy and paste job. A LOT OF reporters using blogging with reporting. If you're the gossip among your friends, your friends may have a giggle about it but they're not going to treat you as the most serious person in the room.
Carol: Feeling you have to be first, to be there as part of the story, she understands that feelings. If you weren't first you were in big trouble. With Palin nomination, Women's Media Center not just flooded with pictures of her in bikinis but worst stuff. We have to institute a rule: Stop. Do not read or consume anything until you can fact check it, nothing goes on your website or in blogs. In the blogosphere you're not held accountable. but if it was going to be on our blog it had to be sourced. 99.9 percent of stuff we got was false. If we'd have perpetuated rumors we'd have been held responsible for itl As organization never want to be that far out on limb or irresponsibility.
Tonya: Nerdette, NotMyGal: Third-wave feminist, doesn't like women who present themselves as feminist but who are not pro-woman. Sarah Palin is not her gal. If there's something you've seen in this election cycle that gives you hope about women being on a major ticket? Are we going to have another woman running for president? Would love to know if you feel the same way that having all these women enagaging women online will help women get elected?
Carol: She's part of the solution because she's writing about it. Women were not in the higher media ranks. Annenberg: Women hold only 3 percent of the clout in media 97 percent of what you know about yourselv and our clout in the world comes from male perspective. Bring it more in balance.
To understand importance of stories that you tell and who tells them. We have a campaign that said did anyone notice there are no moderators in final debates? What is that about in 2008. Sexism and misogyny in primary was incredible but no one believed them til they strung it together and showed networks what their pundits had done. She thinks that who tells the story - if you're looking for Hillary effect, apparently there are fewer women than more saying they want to run for office. A lot of it has to do with the treatment she got in the media Next four years ultimate shift that people who want to tell stories are women.
Mary Ann: When weill we have a woman running for president again if polls are really wrong and McCain wins presidency. Can guarantee Clinton will run again in 2012 if Obama doesn't win presidency.
Liz: Doesn't want to say that bloggers drafted Palin? A lot of excitement in blogosphere around Palin since she won governor in 2006. She thinks blogosphere is generally part of the solution. Bloggers much more without any disrespect to MSM, better at voicing concerns, talking about things, set of issues they care about very deeply, may be health care, taxes, foreign policy. If you're a blogger you're probably focused on a couple of different things, political blogger probably focused on a couple of issues. Blogosphere will continue to propel women forward. Female elected officials with focus on agenda and issues will be noticed by blogosphere.
Lisa: Fascinated by WowOhWow.
Lesley: Five founders and 11 contributors are brand names. They saw something happening and didn't want to be left behind. She wanted to be an entrepreneur. She'd never been left behind. They do virtually any subject that's of interest to women which is any subject.
Heather Chapman, the Mother Tongue. There are no female moderators in any of the debates. The economy has tanked but considering women are the majority of undecided voters why aren't candidates more focused on what is of concern to women. Why was Moms Rising denied delivery of letter to Palin's office?
Carol: Started campaign, "Show us the women." They sent questions in from women. They want to know wehre sensibility is to understand that more than half the population is women. Bailout, poverty, all of these issues affect us more than men. Why are they left out? Media.
Lesley: When she opens her eyes where she works there are a lot of women.
Carol: Are they the bosses?
Lesley: No. But she thinks journalism has been friendly to women. She thinks they are more influential than Carol gives credit for.
Carol: Yes. But we have been in a ten-year stall for women.
JJ: Former television reporter. Rode Silicon Valley wave, became a mother, didn't go back into journalism. What about the career opportunities that blogging has given women?
Lisa: It does bring a great opportunity for other generations. Don't have to be 28 years old and camera-friendly to work on blogs.
Lesley: Loves fact that women can start careers, keep working with one child, when second child comes they feel they must be home, this gives them an opportunity not to give up career.
Carol: Numbers we watch, want to make sure you ultimately get paid for it. World has worked that women do all great work and don't get paid for it. All of you have been writing all of these fabulous blogs, number of women syndiaated columnists have in fact decreased. Paper like Post or Times can have 1 or 2 women and 14 men. Make sure numbers change and you get compensated.
Lesley: this is an opportunity to keep your skills honed and come at it.
Liz: She sees blogging as something that's very useful in terms of transitioning between different roles. RNC had no interest in hiring someone to do online communications who didn't have online experience. She wouldn't have her job if she wasn't a blogger. People looking for workers who have done something in hands-on manner (ie social media) who better to hire?
Jocelyn: Identity politics in election cycle. Distressing to her how difficult it is for us to think more braodly than gender and race. How could she make a choice between these key parts of her identity. When we talk about women we're talking about white women. When we talk about race we talk about black men. Wants to see talk of intersections: rich, black female. etc.
Mary Ann: Look at how often we all refer to Barack Obama as a black man. He's never referred to as interracial. It's become simple to pigeonhole.
Carol: We will get better at this. We're brand new. We've lived in such a segregated society. Workplace is where we all come together, schools, neighborhoods, churches. We work together and go home to our separate. Challenge at WMC is "are you defined by race or gender if you're a black woman?" That's not a blanket statement. Each individual has to decide for herself. It's an inclusive thing. Ther are those of us who would say I've been discrimniated against more for being a woman than a black person. That's her experience.
Joanne Bamberger: We've had this whole discussion today, so what do we do? How do we get our voices out there more? We're all in the blogosphere, for better or worse.
Mary Ann: Buddy up with some people in MSM who are attached to credible, big news organizations such as the Post, Times, WSJ, CBSNews, ABCNews, CNN. They all have blogs. They'd lofve to link to your stuff if you have good stuff. Dn't hesitate to reach out to these people. Great way to reach out.
Lesley: Doesn't want to have this end on a downer, but: When she was hired it was 1972. A lot of women had ocme into workforce. If you'd told me then we wouldn't have woman president by 2008, still talking about glass ceiling,she'd have told you you were crazy. Baffled why women fall behind, two steps forward, three back, other countries women are prime ministers. No simple answer. We just keep plugging because what else can we do but it raewlly is an astonishment.
Liz: Practical advice, she was a blogger first. She found by doing the buddying up thing that not only were people paying attention to what she was blogging but they were asking if she wanted to write an op-ed or column. Understands people don;t want to abandon the blogosphere but she doens't think it hurts to reach out and get things run every once in awhile. A lot of people who were signed up for email alerts on her own Web site, I think that's how they found me.
Lisa: We can end on a positive note. Each one of these women have founded a site or an initiative in the blogosphere. That's the accomplishment.
Standing ovation.
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