There is a deep well of fascinating philosophy up today inside of a killer interview with Rober Draper. Mad props to everyone involved. This is the question that really grabbed me, hence the title of this diary.
WWD: You mentioned that the McCain campaign thinks that blogging is inimical to journalism. Do you think it’s true what they said in your story, that reporters are "primarily young, snarky, blog-obsessed and liberal?"
R.D.: Oh, yes, I think it’s true, but I don’t think it’s a fatal impediment...
I do think that (journalists) are impeded by the imperatives of the trade now... you’re in this eternal footrace, with so many competitors, to get something out that’s fresh and hot and get it out quickly. But Obama’s people have coped with it, and I think that McCain’s people have coped with it less well.
Huffington is trumpeting the McCain campaign's stress on the "blogging is not real journalism" crap. But I feel a much more personal connection, and it is making me examine the entire process.
What do you think about Politico basically guiding the news cycle with two paragraph blurbs? To me it seems a bit too frantic, yet I bet that genie will never be put back in the bottle. What do you think about Daily Kos being so damned popular that we get 200 new members every time Bill O'Reilly or Joe Scarborough bad-mouths us on Tee Vee? What do you think the future of politics will look like if there is ANOTHER exponential leap in the speed and power of the interwebs with each two year cycle?
More from Robert Draper.
WWD: It’s been said that because of access to so much unmediated campaign information — you can watch the speech on YouTube and so on — you no longer even have to be on the bus. How important was it to actually be there?
R.D.: In being there, you can develop relationships with people on the campaign. You can’t do that by sitting on your butt at home watching YouTube. If you’re out there watching them do their thing, then go out in the evening and have a beer with them and talk to them about what’s just transpired, then you set yourself up for what could be a series of interesting interviews....[And] that sort of proximity isn’t earned overnight. I didn’t contact the McCain campaign and say, "I’m going to do this story and I demand intimate access." You have to earn your trust with these people. And I did, over a lengthy period of time. It’s also true that I didn’t come with a thesis in mind....That gave me credibility, and ultimately, access.
I fear that we may be coming to an end to the age of the deep insight that comes with extended time sharing the same air, but is that really a bad thing? The cozy relationships that journalists formed with John McCain in 2000 took a while to lose their hold, and he got a very lengthy free pass because of it. Of course he fell even further when he betrayed his allegiance to honesty, but that's on him.
Would it be better to NOT rub shoulders quite so much? Or would we lose the literary quality of a campaign if it was reduced to all-blog status?
WWD: Did it help that you had only one story to write, as opposed to filing every 30 seconds?
R.D.: Unlike some of the journalists for not only the daily papers but for networks, who have to constantly blog as well as file stories, I could be a little more leisurely, and beyond that, maintain a big-picture perspective. And frankly, the McCain campaign was much more responsive to that approach. They’ve come to be rather disdainful of the hyper-blogging that takes place on the press bus, and they think it has increased this mind-set of "gotcha" journalism, where every time John McCain would say something, instead of asking a follow-up question, people would go scurry off to their laptops and post to their blogs. And the McCain campaign believes that’s not what journalism ought to be. I’m not positing myself as some kind of superior journalist, it’s just that the format of long-form journalism allows me to be a little more leisurely, allows me to look at the longer view of things, and allows me two-and-a-half months on a single story.
I must admit I would miss the occasional lengthy study of each candidate and campaign. But I also know the addictive nature of "this eternal footrace".
Hence this diary.