By Andrew Baker
Maybe they thought that by changing the messenger they could stem the tide of bad news. Maybe they thought that they could bully them around. Or maybe new media finally has arrived in Washington for good. Any way you spin it, it's a big deal for new media. The "big deal" that I speak of is this month's invitation extended by the U.S Treasury Dept. to bloggers. The Treasury Dept. seemed to welcome bloggers to be a part of their press corps and report on their actions.
I stumbled over this story while trolling nytimes.com for possible blog fodder (you can check out The Times' account here). I found it particularly relevant because of what we had recently discussed in class about the relationship between bloggers - as a new medium for political discourse - and government officials. This article goes a long way to answering some of the questions about how bloggers, if credentialed, would react to being placed as the medium responsible for reporting on the Treasury. I've also included a link to interfluidity.com whose author Steve Randy Waldman was one of the bloggers present. Unless you enjoy reading financial blogs, I would suggest just looking at the first couple paragraphs as they speak very well to the interplay between the two entities involved here. One passage in particular seemed to say a lot, "Whatever disagreements one might have, in statistical if not moral terms it was an extreme privilege to sit across a conference table and have a chance to speak with these people." The author eludes to a very important development in the progression of new media with regards to the development of original content:although disagreements are undeniable, there is great respect and deference for these officials of Treasury Dept. This development seems to suggest that new media is well on its way to becoming a legitimate source for original reporting because, in large part it has adopted at least some conception of journalistic integrity.
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