Biggest Story of 2009: The Rise of the Virtual Newsroom
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It was the biggest story of 2009.
If you doubt, ask ACORN. Or Van Jones. Or the So We Might See
campaign. You won’t need Time magazine’s once
clout-filled “Man of the Year” issue to figure it out, either.
Just take a look back at the bestseller lists, the ratings of Fox
News or simply turn on your local AM radio dial.
The single most important news event of 2009 was the emergence of
The Virtual Newsroom. A newsroom run by a virtual army of
conservative journalists famous and unknown, their individual and
collective impact multiplied exponentially by millions of
Internet users, radio listeners, readers and television viewers.
How did this happen? How does it work in practice?
First, perspective is needed here. Like other big news events, it
didn’t happen overnight. There is history, lots of it.
In the afterglow of World War II, at the dawn of the Cold War,
the ideology of American liberalism reigned supreme. What began
at the beginning of the 20th century as the “progressive
movement” — an ideology that believed government control in some
fashion was The Answer to the everyday lives of Americans — was
now riding herd.
Politically, on the one-to-ten scale, Communism was at a
thousand. Beginning with the Soviet Union, entire nations had
succumbed to the idea of state control of everything, run by the
famous Marxist dictum of “from each according to his ability, to
each according to his need.” In America, adherents to the driving
principle of government control were spread out along the scale
below, from socialists like Norman Thomas at a ten to
progressives like FDR Vice President Henry Wallace at a nine and
on down the line, ending with the weakest strain of the germ as
exemplified by liberal Republicans like the New York Governors
Thomas E. Dewey and Nelson Rockefeller.
The “progressive disease” was slowly and not so slowly infecting
everything it touched — the culture, education, religion,
commerce and so on. It was “mainstreamed” — and nowhere else
were its believers more prominent than in the American media. As
fate would have it, the media itself was undergoing a
transformation — technology relentlessly pushing it along in a
fashion that in fact had nothing to do with the politics of the
participants. The power of newspapers, magazines and books was
growing as printing and distribution technology blossomed. Radio,
coming on the scene in the 1920s, was reaching what would be
thought of as a peak, quickly giving way not just to television
but to network television.
And in each and every case, these events were being shaped by
believers who self-identified somewhere on that one-to-ten scale
of “progressivism.” It was, literally, one giant food chain of
intellectual thought, with respectability unquestioningly
bestowed on just about everyone of any note who believed — which
meant just about everyone of note. The country could trade
political parties in the White House from Truman to Eisenhower,
while putting up losing presidential nominees like Dewey or
Democrat Adlai Stevenson. It could send its kids to college, buy
bestselling books, go to church, turn the television channel from
CBS to NBC to, later, ABC — and without missing a beat be on the
receiving end of some forms of the progressive message.
In retrospect, the opening shot of the media counter-revolution
to all of this was the 1951 publication of one book — God
and Man at Yale – by a precocious William F. Buckley,
Jr. The book took on the startled establishment of Yale,
portrayed by alumni Buckley as progressive politicians in the
guise of educators. The book was an instant bestseller, setting
Buckley at 26 firmly on the road to a hugely successful life as a
founding father of conservative media. The book was followed by
Buckley’s establishment of National Review
magazine in 1955.
The conservative counter-revolution in the American media was on.
There isn’t space to detail all that brought us to this moment.
In brief — the known events of the Great Society, the 1960s
cultural revolution, the comeback of AM radio, the rise of the
Internet, cable and satellite TV, Fox News. What we can focus on
here is the effect — how all of this has salted out in the
biggest story of 2009. The coming of age of the Virtual Newsroom
and its convergence with the conservative movement.
Imagine, if you will, the traditional newsroom as it dominated
the once-great metropolitan daily newspapers of America. A vast
acreage of desks, in the modern era, separated into cubicles.
Somewhere is the glassed-in office of the editor, and somewhere
else, usually not on the same floor, the clubby and comfortable
quarters of the publisher.
Now take this image and virtualize it. Add in the names and
faces, the specific tasks of each. Most importantly, understand
that just as with the original, physical version of a newsroom,
the relationship of one person to the other, one task to the
other and each person and task to the whole is essential to the
success of the entire virtual enterprise.
So let’s tour the Virtual Newsroom.
This being the modern era, computers hum at every work station.
The acreage required to accommodate everyone is simultaneously
huge — mammoth — yet intimate. This is a virtual operation. To
be “at your desk” requires only a computer, and while the story
files in here, the journalist in question can in fact be
anywhere, not unlike the old-fashioned idea of the trench-coated
foreign correspondent on the line from 1930s Berlin or the
hard-charging White House correspondent calling in from the
Dallas, Texas of November 22, 1963.
In one corner are the newspaper people, still engaging in the
ancient art form by writing the editorial page of the Wall
Street Journal or putting together the New
York Post or Washington Times.
In another corner are the magazines — the one you are
reading, The American Spectator –
along with Buckley’s National Review, Human
Events, the Weekly Standard
and Commentary. Throughout are the
columnists — my colleagues — who sift the work product of the
rest of the room for investigation or commentary.
Just down the hall is talk radio row. This line of studios filled
with hosts, producers and call-screeners is enormous, covering
hundreds of shows from Maine to California. The man who almost
single-handedly created this section of the newsroom has — but
of course — a corner office. Everybody in the newsroom loves
Rush. They know he’s in when cigar smoke is seen wafting out the
door, the occasional NFL replay booming forth as he preps his way
through his “stack of stuff.” His EIB studio adjoins his office,
a glassed-in-front providing an inside-look for visitors as he
sits before the golden microphone. The great thing about the
Virtual Newsroom is the corner office concept. Everyone can have
one if they wish. Sean Hannity has one, a football frequently
arcing out onto the larger newsroom floor waiting for someone to
toss it back. Donuts airlifted from someplace called Stan’s in
California signal that Mark Levin is back there, along with the
pin-up of the U.S. Constitution. Beck’s people are distinctive
because they seem to be perpetually running out of chalk, giving
new meaning to the phrase “let’s chalk this one up.” Laura
Ingraham is frequently seen running out to run with pal Lucy, the
music plugged in, eyes rolling as she catches an Obama image on a
nearby monitor.
Moving along the room we enter TV Land, populated primarily by
Fox News and Fox Business Channel personalities. CNN rented space
for Lou Dobbs but recently gave it up. O’Reilly and Beck seem
constitutionally unable to stop pranking each other, which has
necessitated a rare disciplinary procedure of giving Bernard
Goldberg his virtual office separating the two on occasion.
Dennis Miller does not help the situation. Sean and Beck, doing
double-duty with radio shows and TV shows, seem to live in the
newsroom, both apparently having a huge time of sheer fun with
the whole thing. Greta and Neil and Stuart Varney work their
respective beats, although there is a ripple of amusement or two
every time heads lift to the realization that Frank Rich is on
Imus and hence Fox Business, yet again playing defense for the
Times.
The rapidly expanding section of the Virtual Newsroom that has
everyone buzzing is the Internet “desk.” Drudge is here, ditto
Andrew Breitbart. There is much suspiciously timed coming and
going to the virtual water cooler when Breitbart stars James
O’Keefe and Hannah Giles are in. In real life people are always
disappointed to see O’Keefe doesn’t wear the chinchilla fur to
work and that Giles is, in fact, suitably dressed for the virtual
workplace. What’s particularly interesting here is the size of
this division. Job applications pour in hourly from conservative
bloggers around the nation. The applications are stamped “hire
now” by someone wearing a Harry Potter-style “invisibility cloak”
and the virtual newsroom expands yet again. There is some
speculation that the physical dimension of the newspapers will at
some point vanish altogether and their offices just be folded
into the Internet group. Time will tell.
Last but most importantly not least, is what we call the Boswell
department. Named after England’s James Boswell, the famous
18th-century chronicler of The Life of Samuel
Johnson, the Boswell’s are conservative authors. The
real-time chroniclers of conservatism as it is or is not seen or
applied today. Between them they take the time to illuminate the
basics of conservative philosophy (Mark Levin in
Liberty and Tyranny), the craziness of liberalism
(Ann Coulter, most recently in Guilty
,Glenn Beck in Common Sense,
Laura Ingraham in Power to the
People), the historic attachment of progressivism to
overripe if not outright totalitarian political thought (Jonah
Goldberg in Liberal Fascism) or what the
progressives running the government are up to now (Michelle
Malkin in Culture of Corruption, Dick
Morris in Catastrophe). The central
function of each is the same. To educate, to remind, to explain,
to illuminate for their Virtual Newsroom colleagues. This in turn
keeps all of us in the Virtual Newsroom repeatedly attuned to the
necessary ability to examine what we see in the world around us.
To understand exactly what we are seeing, why we are seeing it,
and most importantly why what we are seeing does or does not
work.
SO HOW DOES all this work together? What is here that makes the
Virtual Newsroom and its conservative occupants indisputably the
biggest story of 2009?
Three stories.
Story One: Here you have two young
conservative journalists, O’Keefe and Giles, possessed of a keen
philosophical eye, a knowledge of technology (cameras,
microphones videotape, the Internet) and a fat and inviting
liberal fish in a barrel known as ACORN. Imagination conjured as
to how they will approach their story — they go out and conduct
their very-old style journalism investigation. Story in hand,
Andrew Breitbart of Breitbart.tv in the Internet division takes
the handoff. He sends a virtual memo to talk radio row’s Beck and
Hannity. Who in turn are both Fox News stars.
Five…four…three…two…one. Bang! Within a virtual instant, the
Virtual Newsroom has just blown in the hull of the good ship
ACORN, its stunned survivors racing around the
deck of a political Titanic as Breitbart, O’Keefe
and Giles are powered by the engines of the Virtual Newsroom. The
full power of the Virtual Newsroom kicks in. Talk radio shows
light up the call screeners screens. The newspaper and magazines
kick in, in print and online. The lights are on in the Fox
studios as the surging Fox audience gapes at a federally funded
organization strategizing on prostitution. And…lights out for
ACORN. Or more accurately, considerably damaged and suddenly
congressionally unfunded. And the coverage from what’s left of
the liberal mainstream media in all this? Next to zero.
Story Two: Van Jones has it made. From
community organizer straight to the White House staff in the
Obama era.
Says Obama key aide Valerie Jarrett:
JARRETT: You guys know Van Jones? [Applause. Moderator injects:
"This is his house apparently."]JARRETT: Oooh. Van Jones, alright! So, Van Jones. We were so
delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House. We
were watching him, uh, really, he’s not that old, for as long
as he’s been active out in Oakland. And all the creative ideas
he has. And so now, we have captured that. And we have all that
energy in the White House.
Alas for Mr. Jones, the Virtual Newsroom is at work. This is the
21st century, and not unlike millions of others, Mr. Jones has
portions of his career on videotape. On the Internet. The blogger
sleuths of the Virtual Newsroom are at work, from coast to coast.
This time the info surfaces, speech by speech, piece of tape by
piece of tape, painting a portrait of Van Jones — painted by Van
Jones himself. A portrait recognized of the old progressivism
highlighted so ably in book form by National
Review’s Jonah Goldberg in Liberal
Fascism – the desire to take from one group seen as
undeserving and unworthy of their creations and give it to
others. A portrait made more vivid by the Virtual Newsroom
discovery of a tie to the nuttiness of the “Truther” movement
that believes George W. Bush secretly set up the attack on
America. In the material flows. The Old Media, predictably if
irrelevantly, ignores the story. Seamlessly now, racing around
the Virtual Newsroom from Internet desk to the talk radio desk to
the television, magazine and newspaper desks — Van Jones is
quickly and unceremoniously out of his White House job.
Story Three: The So We Might See campaign
“hate speech” campaign that pushes to get both Beck and CNN’s Lou
Dobbs off the air. In this case, the story came from my desk at
The American Spectator section of the Virtual
Newsroom. After spending much time in the Internet division’s
research library, the Spectator runs a series of
my investigative columns involving seven major religious
denominations and what appear to be an effort to silence Virtual
Newsroom colleagues Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, Dobbs and others.
Paid for in part by left-wing billionaire George Soros’s Open
Society Institute. Once up on the virtual screen of
The American Spectator, customers of the Virtual
Newsroom begin swamping the leaders of their faiths, furious at
what is instantly seen as an attempt to silence free speech –
and in a fashion a portion of the Virtual Newsroom itself.
Backtracking begins. Three faiths change their mind, two dropping
from the FCC petition, one out of the group altogether. The
campaigns to Drop Dobbs and get Beck are removed from the So We
Might See site. Who in the Virtual Newsroom was involved in this?
The Internet desk, the magazine desk, talk radio row, and Lou
Dobbs. Ironically, Dobbs left CNN the night of my appearance on
his show, a fact that only highlights CNN’s inability to cope
with the Virtual Newsroom. He is still, it should be said, over
there in his studio on radio row.
What these three stories illustrate — and there are more, the
health care fight being another — is that the Virtual Newsroom
has arrived. It is populated by a cast of thousands — TV stars,
radio broadcasters, Internet sites, columnists, investigators,
people in pajamas — you name them, they are here. They have a
philosophical underpinning for what they do — something seen in
the response to Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny. They
know exactly what to look for, as Breitbart, O’Keefe and Giles of
the Internet division have shown. Most importantly, they know how
to take a story — to alert their colleagues in the Virtual
Newsroom — and then work the story across the newsroom from
virtual or physical print to Internet to radio to television. To
wit: from the cameras of Breitbart, O’Keefe and Giles to talk
radio and the bright lights of Beck and Hannity. Or, from my
computer to pages of The American Spectator
to the set of Lou Dobbs. And so on, for every single
colleague in the Virtual Newsroom who has a compelling story to
tell.
What is particularly interesting here — and a key to the success
of the entire Virtual Newsroom — is that the Virtual Newsroom
itself is a living, breathing example of what Levin calls Adam
Smith’s devotion to free markets as “spontaneous order.”
No one “has” to write or broadcast a particular story. It’s a
free market in story ideas out there on the Virtual Newsroom
floor. As a result, creativity reigns. A million different ideas
float through the Virtual Newsroom on any given day, with the
journalists in the room looking them over as if at some giant
intellectual smorgasbord. What appeals to The American
Spectator may not interest National
Review. What turns on Breitbart may enthuse Beck but
not Hannity. The curiosity of Michelle Malkin on an issue may not
appeal to a Jed Babbin at Human Events.
Launching Laura is not the same as ticking off Ann. What gets
Rush’s adrenaline flowing…well…generally speaking Rush gets
everybody’s adrenaline flowing.
The problem for American progressives today — be they the
activists of ACORN, Van Jones, the So We Might See group or
others — is that they are unaccustomed to finding themselves on
the receiving end of this kind of attention from the journalists,
commentators, investigators, talk radio hosts, television stars
and authors of the Virtual Newsroom. It is safe to say that
whatever else went on in the three stories listed here, the
scoundrels at ACORN, Mr. Jones, and the So We Might See-ers were
taken aback at the fact they — they! — were suddenly under the
Virtual Newsroom microscope for their public activities.
Accustomed to velvet-gloved treatment from their progressive
buddies in the Old Media, they simply never factored the
existence of the Virtual Newsroom into the equation.
Newsflash to progressives. The Virtual News room is here to stay.
Not only is it not going away — in spite of whatever shenanigans
may be going on behind the closed doors of the FCC — it is
gaining in both size and strength.
And gaining in something else that simply terrifies progressive
activists everywhere: the power to seriously influence events.
Which is why, when all is said and done by December 31, it is
already clear that the story of the year in 2009 is not President
Obama, health care, Iraq or even Tiger Woods.
The story of 2009 is the emergence of a new and powerful player
increasingly dominating American politics, culture, education,
religion and who knows what else.
That player is the media that is the Virtual Newsroom. And the
conservatives who run it.
