Burnt Orange Report

BOR on CNN's Inside Politics?

By Byron LaMasters

I've received several emails this afternoon telling us that we got a plug on CNN's Inside Politics today. I didn't have the chance to watch, but I'm curious - what exactly did they say?

Let us know in comments...

Update: Ok, via email, here's the transcript (emphasis mine):

CROWLEY: Tom DeLay is among the hot topics in the blogsphere today. Here with me now to tell us all about it are CNN political producer Abbi Tatton and our blog reporter Jacki Schechner. Jacki, what are you hearing about Tom DeLay, or reading, I guess?

JACKI SCHECHNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Candy. What we're reading about in regard to Tom DeLay is just the blogs, especially those on the left, keeping track of what is going on; all of his alleged ethical transgressions. Not so much digging on their part but really sort of collecting a roundup of what has been going on. Over at the Burnt Orange Report, a liberal Texas blog, they smell blood. He says: "There's something big coming soon," over at Running Scared, another liberal blog. They say: "While the Democrats are drooling, the Republicans are concerned. And he says: "With new allegations servicing on a near daily basis, the bug man is rapidly becoming a liability." So speaking of daily.

ABBI TATTON, CNN POLITICAL PRODUCER: Yes. If you're having trouble of keeping track of all the DeLay stories out there, go to thedailydelay.blogspot.com. This gives you a roundup of all the different mainstream media stories out there on the congressman. Now Congressman Tom DeLay is also the subject of tomorrow's Blog Call. This is a group of liberal and progressive bloggers who have got together. They don't want to wait around for the mainstream media to pick up on their exposes. They want attention. So they have organized this weekly conference call, a blog call, where they're inviting members of the mainstream media to call in and find out what they're blogging about. Not reading the blogs themselves, actually calling up on the phone. Now this was the subject of a New York Times piece today that lots of bloggers have been linking to and reading and commenting on. Here, Amy Langfield (ph), not a political blogger, but read this this morning in The New York Times and she wonders why reporters can't just read the Internet. "This story," she says, "it's about some frothy political bloggers holding a conference call so reporters don't know how to use the Internet can listen to bloggers talk about what they've posted on sites in the past week. Just shoot me now."

Continued in the extended entry...

SCHECHNER: It's actually organized by a democrats.com, which is a liberal site, the Blog Call is organized by them. So obviously on the conservative side they are lashing out. They've got some pretty harsh words. We found one that was a little less scathing, and it's Outside the Beltway. And they say that they have no problems with bloggers trying to get notice in the mainstream press, or with activist bloggers banding together to get the message out. Their problem, this was interesting, is that the conference calls represent bloggers acting as political operatives and not as journalists. Another story that the blogosphere is talking about, the blogs talking about the blogs today, feels like a Monday, is that over at -- it was News Day, it was Stephen Levy's (ph) article -- or Newsweek, I'm sorry, my bad, Newsweek. Stephen Levy's article about the blogosphere being made up of primarily white males, or dominated by white males. A lot of the blogs think this is just a perception. It's not actually in fact the case. There are some people who feel that that's what's going on. But they have got some arguments against it over at Air Force Voices. This gentleman says he's a Hispanic male, so maybe he should just stop blogging, being sarcastic. What he liked about Captain Ed, over at Captain's Quarters, is he talks about he marketed his blog. He's one of the bigger blogs. And says that in short: "I took the time to learn my market and adapted accordingly. I haven't stopped marketing the blog either and don't plan to any time soon.

TATTON: Chrisnolan.com (ph) here, this is a female journalist writing about politics, the media and the Internet. She is saying -- she is talking about this and she has 10 issues here. One of the things she points out, this medium was first taken up by techies. And she's saying that men are linking to men even though the blogosphere has gotten much larger, most of these men still reading the guys they started out with three years ago. There are broader horizons but it's pretty much just talk.

My general mantra on blogging is that any publicity is good publicity. Even when the mainstream media attacks blogs, their attacks only serve to spur interest in our medium - thus increasing our visibilty and traffic. So, I take pride in the fact that CNN is watching what we write here.

Posted by Byron LaMasters at March 14, 2005 04:37 PM | TrackBack