Sweet Sassy Molassy Look at How Far We've Come

Hang on guys, I'm getting a page. Is there another telephone in the bedroom that I might be able to use? Oh wait! Terry's got a car phone! Terry, give me your keys so I can start your car and use your car phone.

But how were you supposed to tweet?

Hankins v. Rutherford: Too Civil/Lacking of Bloodshed To Be Entertaining

The minor tremors about the Arkansas blogotwitterspheres today were regarding a column published by Arkansas Business publisher Jeff Hankins on the omnipresence of new media and the subsequent rebuttal by blogger Blake Rutherford of Blake's Sentient Bull Dozer.

Hankins says that media is now everywhere thanks to these meddling kids and their blogs and their twitters and their pop music. Rutherford retorts, "Yeah, so?"

In short, they seem to agree with one another about the viability and actuality of new media being on the prowl, but disagree on whether or not this is necessarily a causal "pitfall." Rutherchevy says that people have been spreading rumors and traditional news outlets have been getting it wrong for quite sometime, and to blame new media for those conventions is downright erroneous.

He also points out that it's a vast generalization to say that bloggers wouldn't correct themselves if they admittedly got a scoop wrong, which is true. But come to think of it, I don't see a lot of corrections made, unless it's regarding a source, quoted statement, or something else supplementary, rarely affecting the entire body of the post. But maybe the blogs I frequent are rarely wrong (ARKANSAS BLOGOSPHERE ELITISM! FIST PUMP!).

There's more agreeing going on here than not to really say this is a debate. As I say this, I'm hoping that a shirtless Hankins is storming down to the Bowen Law School, kicking open the door to Rutherford's law class to open a can in front of his students, ya know, to spice this narrative up a bit, but in case that doesn't pan out, it seems that both made good points about the whole state of affairs, without stomping each others' toes. Cue to the cheesy Full House electric guitar, denoting a valuable lesson to be learned.

Hankins is right: The media in its new form is now everywhere, unfettered by the old media's rules and governance. Rutherford is right: That doesn't mean that old media is infallible, not that Hankins was claiming it to be.

I actually spoke on an SPJ panel about the rift or symbiosis of old and new media. I really believe that the cream will rise to the top, meaning credible bloggers are more likely to be carried on and be successful than those that are known to spew bias and misinformation to prove its own point or attain a cheap, non-informative goal.

I think that credible blogs do indeed hold themselves to standards. We all know the credible blogs around town. While I certainly see bias in the analysis, very rarely are they flat out wrong about the events. In fact, I don't recall any. In double fact, I recall one such blog — Max Brantley's not-very-originally titled "Arkansas Blog" — getting information regarding the no-smiling law on our driver's licenses that turned out to be bogus and through investigation — huh? fact checking? on a blog?! — and then corrected it, shedding light on the subject through good ole fashioned journalistic checking of sources.

But "citizen journalism" is here to stay, anyway. It ought to. At it's very core, all journalism, conventional and otherwise, ought to at the very least be geared toward the citizenry.

Me and The Most Thunderous Slapping of the Forehead Ever on Maddow Tonight

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

UPDATE: It's uh me uh speaking to uhhhh Rachel Maddow about uh ooo ah oh Kim uh Hendren.

State Sen. Kim Hendren said some things last week that he should not have said. And he admitted that to me in an interview today.

Oh, wait, what? You already heard that? Okay. We'll here's my Bureau story on it, anyway.

It's been getting a lot of national buzz. I would say that many people are appalled at the statements, but even more are perplexed that he himself let this get out.

I spoke with someone on the condition of anonymity who was at the GOP meeting. He (or She?!?! Ooo! A twist!) said that everyone there heard it, and through a series of awkward shrugs, acknowledged the same thought: "What the heck did he just say?"

But no one there reported it. There were no media folks there, and the only word out was that he was getting "eaten alive" according to one tweeter. "I mean, we were all Republicans."

Basically, no one was going to throw a fellow Republican — no matter how much they seemed to despise his tax raisin' ways — under the bus. Everyone knows that Sen. Lincoln is rolling with some pretty tepid numbers, and that Hendren is the only actual candidate without the word "potential" preceding it.

But everyone also knew this would happen sooner or later. Hendren has always been defined by that, as someone who speaks their mind, openly and honestly, if you like him, or someone who is always about ankle-deep with their foot in their mouth.

I'll be on Rachel Maddow's show tonight, live on MSNBC. It runs from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. central standard time, and they tell me I should be on around 8:45. That is if I don't get bumped or something, which w

The real question is this: Shirtless or sleeveless? I'll let the comment section decide.

Overlord Give Newsing Media Make Glorious America? Hail the Overlord!

As reported by several in the field, I spoke on a panel at the Society of Professional Journalists this weekend to discuss new-fangled media and what to do about it with old-fangless media strategies.

It went well. There were was an encouraging amount of interaction between the panel, admittedly old-school journalists, Journalism Professors, and students.

I say it went well, although the question persists, but no one walking into that room thought anything would be resolved. One question, from our moderator, the Demozette's John "Supa" Krupa, unnerved me a little bit. I hadn't thought about it until I saw the question in writing before the gig was set to launch.

"Do you think the government should subsidize or 'bail out' newspapers?"

I think I wrapped up that question quickly and then yielded my time to Conan "Cannon Galaxy" Gallaty and this other guy. But I began to wonder later that day if people had actually been mulling this idea around.

The answer to this has to be no. The answer to this has to be H-E-double hockey sticks no.

I spoke briefly and most boringly about taking steps backward philosophically to figure out what it truly means to be a distributor of information and what it means to be a journalist.

I have always thought, even before landing bass-aackward into this job, that one of the most important roles a newspaper (and even the news without the paper-attachment) could play was that of the foil to government. It is, in my humble opinion, a necessary check and balance.

This is an often quoted, and probably ill-referenced example, but Watergate worked through a newspaper. Woodward and Bernstein brought down a now obviously corrupt executive branch. That's a clear example. But delivering information does more than just topple the oppressive. It serves as a political conduit. Politicians and constituents alike gauge on another, often, by what they read about one another in the paper.

And a paper will never write anything that impugns its owner. Ever.

Whether or not the news comes on gray paper with smudgy ink isn't the issue for me. Like Michael Kinsley said in the Washington Post, it's all going to be alright. People will figure out how to monetize the news.

That being said, the news businesses, including our own, will need to innovate these ways to monetize quickly, or be lost along the wayside. But government ownership — and that's what it would be, ownership; not Stephens Media or Gannett, but United States Media or Government — would pose such a tremendous conflict of interest that it would border on making this blessed service news provides and turning into propaganda.

Anyway, I read the press releases from government officials. They're lousily written.