Opinion-blogging and Fund Raising are Vital, but RightRoots Must Also Develop Investigative Skills PART ONE
By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
10/29/08 7:15 PM EDT
John Hawkins of Right Wing News and Patrick Ruffini and Jon Henke at The Next Right have sparked a much-needed and thoughtful discussion about where the Right side of the Blogosphere goes post-election 2008.
They don't agree on everything but they concur on two fundamentals - punditry, or opinion blogging, is fun, but it's no longer sufficient a foundation on which to build an online conservative/libertarian movement that can change America. And the reluctance seen in many corners of the Right side of the Blogosphere to explicitly seek contributions for candidates and to finance issue-oriented activism needs to be overcome.
Go here to read the Hawkins commentary, here for the Henke response and here for the Ruffini exposition. All three are essential reading for everybody on the Right who cares about the future of the movement and the country.
But I want to offer a third essential element in addition to punditry and activism. The RightRoots must make a top priority of equiping vastly more of our sites with the reportorial and investigative skills required to dig up and present credible exposes, fact-based analyses and concrete news stories.
In short, we've complained about liberal media bias for decades, but now that the mainstream media is steadily being displaced by online media, many of us need to become ..... journalists, or capable of doing the online analogy of traditional journalism, particularly in its investigative phase.
To be sure, we've not been without some capacity in this regard. Right bloggers regularly break new stories and advance existing ones. But there are no Right blogs primarily devoted to gathering and breaking daily and investigative news in politics, public policy and related venues.
If we are to have decisive influence on the public policy agenda, we must wield a significant voice in shaping the daily media narrative about that agenda. That means being able to unnearth facts, figures and documents that break or advance important news stories.
In other words, it's time for the RightRoots to begin working to raise up a new generation of Right online reporters and editors who happen to publish on blogs and other sites devoted to doing what traditional print and broadcast outlets in the Mainstream Media have done for decades.
Some of the tools and programs required to do this are already available. The Phillips Foundation's Journalism Fellowship Program has developed into a major resource for young conservatives in the early stages of journalism careers. The Fellowships provide stipends of varying amounts to enable them to do specific newsworthy projects.
Among the 2008 receipients of full-time Phillips Fellowships were: David Donaldio for "The Free Press in the Free Market: A Study of how the Internet is Transforming the Newspaper Business;" Emily Krone for "Unchartered Territory: Can Entrepreneurial Charter Schools Achieve the Scale and Sustain the Quality to Transform the American Public School System," and Travis Kavulla for "Africa's New Christianity and the future of American Influence."
Among the 2008 recipients of part-time Phillips Fellowships were: Cheryl Chumley for "National Heritage Areas: A Blot Against Property Rights or a Boon for the Nation?"; Matthew Continetti for "The Single Society: The Social Transformation Changing Ameircan Business, Politics and Culture," and Jonathan Last for "The Fertility Rate and America's Futurer."
Phillips is increasing its fellowship amounts for its 2009 awards to $75,000, $50,000 and $25,000. The foundation has awarded a total of 76 awards since its founding in 1994. I've known more than a few of the recipients of these awards and I have no doubt there are dozens of future journalism stars among their ranks. Conservative publisher Tom Phillips deserves great praise and thanks for making the program happen.
A related program at the Young America's Foundation is the National Journalism Center, which was founded in 1977 by conservative newspaper editor, organizer and writer M. Stanton Evans years ago for the purpose of training aspiring conservative journalists. The majority of the NJC's enrollees are headed for punditry positions. Dr. Stephen Bird, a former journalism professor from Texas, manages the program now.
I've been involved with NJC for several years because the center added to its curriculum the Database 101 Computer-Assisted Research and Reporting (CARR) Boot Camps program I started at The Heritage Foundation eight years ago. The boot camps, which are held about once a month from March through November are held at the National Press Club and provide attendees with basic skills in using spreadsheets to dig news out of the thousands of databases available at all levels of government and to dissect data-driven claims by public officials, think tank analysts and non-profit activists.
The Media Bloggers Association (MBA) hosted a CARR Boot Camp as part of its first national meeting in Nashville at the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in 2005. Other bloggers have attended CARR boot camps at the NPC. Because CARR is increasingly the essential skill for both investigative and other reporting, the Heritage boot camps are potentially among the most powerful resources available for growing the impact and influence of the RightRoots movement.
More recently, the MBA - which is open to bloggers of all ideological persuasions - has started some critically important new programs designed to equip bloggers with essential reporting skills, as well as critically important knowledge of libel law and its implications and applications to blogging. The programs also include access to a libel insurance program specifically designed for bloggers. I've been involved with MBA since 2005 and am convinced the new programs will some day be viewed as milestones in the development of the Blogosphere.
Also of interest here is the role of my present organization, The Washington Examiner and its web site, dcexaminer.com. We announced today that Matthew Sheffield is coming onboard to oversee a thorough-going redesign of the site that should make it one of the leading edge media sites bar none.
There is much more to say on these matters, so look for Part Two in a day or so.
UPDATE: It's Not About Saving the GOP
Patrick Ruffini makes the essential point that must be understood: "No one is talking about the right blogs becoming a cheering section for the GOP. This is not what the netroots are to the Dems. What I think I'm talking about is a rightroots that is an independent political force to change the GOP."
And over at OpenMarkets.org, Ian Murray suggests a FreeRoots movement aimed at winning the war of ideas online by equiping advocates with the needed facts and applying the basic web principle of collaborative networking - as illustrated by the effective manner in which BeyondBailouts.org is focusing continued opposition to the Bush/Paulson/Pelosi bailout.
UPDATE II: All of the Above
Ruffini comes in to pull together all of the "What must be done" arguments made by yours truly, Iain Murray, Jon Hencke, Soren Dayton and Sean Oxendine and to recommend an "all of the above" approach to the future. Be sure and read the linked pieces by Dayton and Oxendine to get the full round of thought on these issues.
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