In today's 2nd Anniversary Show, Wilshire & Washington asks: How can an online news organization succeed, both financially and journalistically, in this modern internet era? That's the question that The Daily Caller is attempting to answer, launching in January 2010 and co-founded by longtime newsman (and bowtie aficionado) Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel, former Senior Policy Advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney. Patel, the site's publisher, joins us to discuss The Daily Caller's business and news model: How will they be doing original reporting, and how will they be covering the 2010 election? How will they separate news, opinion, and citizen journalists, and how much will they be using freelancers? How will they make money in the struggling news business, and how will they be using web video in the near future? And why call the site The Daily Caller? We also talk the Congressman Eric Massa saga, and the media criticism that has followed, especially from Congressman Patrick Kennedy. Is this a genuine news story or is it as overblown as Kennedy suggests? Massa's interview on Glenn Beck's show was a stunning bit of television, where expectations for a partisan turncoat turned out to be false hope for Beck. Will this whole story harm the Democrats, and can we expect Massa on The Apprentice with Donald Trump in the next year? Finally, we discuss a new study out of the Norman Lear Center, analyzing local newscasts in the LA region, finding that the emphasis was on crime and celebrity and that these telecasts ignore local political issues. While sites like Politico and Huffington Post are launching local DC editions, who is covering local governments these days? Newspapers? Yes, somewhat. Twenty years ago, there were a couple of beat reporters who knew everyone and where everything was in a local city hall, and that's just not the case anymore. Is this where the blogs are going to pick up the slack? What about the alt-weeklies? And should the government harden its mandate on local stations to provide this sort of information?
Listen to the show here, subscribe to the iTunes podcast, or use the Blog Talk Radio player:
Wilshire & Washington, the weekly Blog Talk Radio program that explores the intersection of politics, entertainment, and new media, features co-hosts Ted Johnson, Managing Editor of Variety; conservative blogger Teresa Valdez Klein (www.teresacentric.com), and liberal blogger Maegan Carberry (www.maegancarberry.com). The show airs every Wednesday at 7:30am PST on BlogTalkRadio.com.