So I turned on NPR's
Talk of the Nation Wednesday afternoon as part of the decompression process after YearlyKos (my diary on that amazing event is forthcoming) and what do I hear? Neal Conan and political commentator Ken Rudin talking about someone who
wasn't there, namely, Hillary Clinton.
"Democratic activists and bloggers are giving their party's presidential hopefuls a piece of their mind at a convention this week in Washington, D.C," Conan said, effectively conflating the Take Back America and YearlyKos events into one convenient talking point.
The two went on to push - by appearing to debunk - the tired meme that Hillary is the de facto frontrunner of the Dem's 2008 presidential contest, and that all other competitors must knock her off the top step first before they have a chance at the White House.
More TradMedia crap below:
Conan and Rudin then took a call from Steve in St. Louis at minute 4:30, who demanded, "Who crowned Hillary? How did the Hillary name come up, and who made that pronouncement?" Rudin backtracked, stammered and danced around the question, clearly embarrassed that they had been called on it, and conceded the point. (It was beautiful. Mike Stark would have been proud.)
The two then went on to cite unnamed national polls, the ubiquitous "some people," and the Clinton war chest as justification for "them" calling her the frontrunner, and then (at 7:10) went on to repeat the meme -- and the conflation of Las Vegas with D.C. -- to the second caller, David Sirota! Unfortunately, Sirota, while doing a good job of separating Democratic insiders from outsiders and outlining our overall dissatisfaction with the latter, also failed to mention YearlyKos by name. So I dashed off a quick letter to talk@npr.org, below:
Mr. Rudin,
I was at YearlyKos (the "bloggers' conference," which was at Las Vegas, NOT Washington, D.C., and which you not only failed to mention by name but conflated with Take Back America, an entirely separate event!) and was dismayed to see how the traditional media luminairies there 1) insisted on pushing Hillary Clinton in our faces nearly every time they interviewed one of us, and 2) treated the conference like a "DNC Convention Lite," simply because some would-be presidential candidates decided to throw us some expensive and unsolicited parties.
Wednesday's TOTN segment was yet another example of this phenomenon. Our disappointment with and anger toward talk show hosts, television pundits and a large segment of the national press is due, among other things, to your profession's demonstrated and infuriating tendency to take the so-called "conventional wisdom" put out there by the right-wing noise machine -- in this case, that HIllary is the anointed Democratic frontrunner -- magnify it in your electronic echo chamber, and then "report" on it as if it were fact.
Case in point: Earlier in your show, host Neal Conan took a call from Steve in St. Louis who asked why Hillary has been pronounced the frontrunner. "Who crowned Hillary?" he asked, and neither you nor Conan answered the question. Instead, after admitting that declaring her the frontrunner now was "nuts" and "ludicrous," you went on to mention unnamed "national polls," along with the fact that she had amassed a large campaign war chest and powerful friends, as justification for this declaration. "It's very interesting how some people will insist on calling her the frontrunner," you said, without mentioning the fact that those "some people" are YOU and the other members of the pundit class, acting effectively as de facto Republican surrogates.
Then, in your very next segment Conan asked David Sirota, "Have the bloggers had their say about Hillary Clinton and her frontrunner status?" and I wanted to throw my radio through the window. Do you folks even listen to yourselves? In my experience in four days of both conference events and casual conversations with other bloggers, Ms. Hillary's name came up, by my count, exactly FIVE TIMES. That our disapproval of her as a potential presidential candidate became the hook for your segment only demonstrates the very behavior that has earned the progressive blogosphere's contempt.
Bloggers conduct Presidential straw polls online all the time. We are not about to repeat that exercise during conference sessions or interviews so that any traditional media in attendence will have an easy lead for their stories. David Sirota tried to bring in the larger picture, but since your whole discussion was based on the important and insightful fact that "bloggers don't like Hillary" he was fighting an uphill battle.
YearlyKos, the first conference ever of its kind and scale, was not meant to serve as a shadow Democratic primary, no matter how many politicians and mainstream commentators wish it did. Bloggers from all walks of life were there to learn new skills, extend our online activity on the ground on a number of social and political fronts, build the kind of coordinated grassroots organization for progressives that the Republicans have now, and to elect Democratic and progressive candidates to local and state races and win back Congress from conservatives in 2006. You would have seen that as well had you committed some actual acts of journalism - and got the city and name of the event correct! - instead of grabbing onto and wasting expensive air time on a tired meme.
"Sharoney" on DailyKos.com
Steve in St. Louis sounded like a Kossack who has internalized both Mike Stark's excellent advice on speaking with talk show hosts, and Jeffrey Feldman's advice on framing a discussion. Steve, if you're out there, take a bow, and thanks!