McCain and the Bloggers

An interesting article/Q&A that I noticed on The Huffington Post that I'll link to. Its a Q&A with Robert Draper, the author of a recent NY Times Magazine article on McCain. I found two of the questions particularly interesting/pertinent.

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.

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. Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter and others who would characterize the media these days in such a way have it about right, except that I also found that a lot of these younger journalists who were my companions aboard the Straight Talk Express were extremely diligent, incredibly hardworking, extremely intelligent and very much of a mind to give the McCain campaign a fair shake. I do think that they 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.
I know a lot of people covering the Obama campaign who are displeased with the level of access being given them, and they have concerns with what an Obama administration would look like in that regard. But they’re also not made out to be the enemy.…And there is a level of disdain that is palpable in the McCain campaign that does not exist in the Obama campaign, and I cannot believe that that is helpful to McCain’s efforts.

Its certainly worth the read. It seems like its playing into the idea that I've been tracking a bit, the idea that McCain and his campaign are reluctant to embrace new media correctly (i.e. blogging, YouTube). While it probably has not been the fatal flaw of the campaign, its a clear disadvantage. One only needs to do a basic search of the net to see an overwhelmingly majority of bloggers/online journalists favoring Obama/Biden. With the internet expanding at the rate that it is, with new capabilities popping up each day, I don't think its a mistake that the more technologically advanced campaign is winning.