They seem to be burning through communication directors t a pretty good pace over at the White House these days. Dan Pfeiffer, the third communication director to serve in the Obama administration, recently had this to say about the nature of political news and information as reported by Michael Scherer of TIME magazine...
"We have a theory of how the news media work in this Internet age," explains Dan Pfeiffer, the buzz-cut 34-year-old who recently became the third person to serve as Obama's communications director. "There is basically a constant swirl going on."
This twister still includes the newspaper front pages, nightly news broadcasts and magazine covers that can often shape the national debate. But it also incorporates Sarah Palin's Facebook page, the latest Internet attack videos and that e-mail your aunt just sent you. "There is a constant conversation that goes on all day long, through blogs, through cable TV, through Twitter, between reporter, subject and reader," says Pfeiffer, who sits down the hall from the Oval Office. He says his new job is to "make sure we are not getting swallowed up by the swirl."
Gone are the days when presidents could just summon reporters from the three networks, the wire services and a couple newspapers to manage a story. No, as Pfeiffer says, it's a tornado. A cross-platform, interactive, digital feed, tweeted tornado. Repurposing content is the way of the new news world. So is stealing content, or as I like to call it: appropriating content. The traditional media provide the credibility bloggers like me... and the good ones too... need to seem even sort of legitimate. Fair use being what it is, my friends at time have figured out a way for a link like the one below to appear with every cut 'n' paste I do from their site...
Just this once, I'm not deleting this thing, since I am (usually) very good about linking to borrowed content. Credit where credit is due, whether the material is outstanding or odious.
This blog, Kerfuffle, started as a little bit of fun with a TypePad account three years ago this very day. Since then it has carried 733 posts before this one. It has served up 34,379 page views in its lifetime, with 320 in the past seven days. Comments, well, those still lag the number of posts, with only 395 so far. Many entries have been cross posted at Daily Kos, occasionally at Dane 101, and most recently at Mediated Communication, the blog of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The blog underwent a redesign about two years ago, and last year a Twitter feed was added to make up for a less than daily posting schedule. (I'd like to say that's due to a "quality over quantity" objective, but sometimes it's due to lack of time, inspiration or both.)
During these three years, I have transitioned from media director at an advertising agency to PhD student at the UW. I'm focusing on new media technologies in the J-school... imagine that.
Kerfuffle has a small but loyal number of followers. I appreciate those who stop by regularly, and especially those who take time to post comments,whether here or via Twitter, FaceBook or email. I genuinely appreciate your attention and your feedback. I hope I make it worth your while now and then. And if not, I guess I'm just happy you chose to waste time here instead of on somewhere else.
Thanks for reading.
Wilbs,
I am thinking that you would have more Comments if you didn't "say it all" all the time. What have I ever commented on, typos? Maybe if you followed the Fox News example of "acute" hyperbole. Unfortunately, screaming on a blog doesn't carry the same effect. Blog on, brother. To view exMplew of my passion, see the FB group "Save Taylor's Maid-Rite" and how I outed a Maid-Rite Corp. Employee as a big fat liar. I think you'd be proud of me.
Narl
Posted by: Narl | 17 March 2010 at 01:50 PM
hey narl,
if you had posted that comment one word at a time you would have upped (??) Wilbs post count immensely...just saying
Posted by: skid | 23 March 2010 at 01:13 AM