STRATEGERY: BUSH CHEERS DECLINE OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA, RISE OF ALTERNATIVE PRESS

drudgereport/strategery ^ | 2/28/2006 | drudge

[Geronimo]

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX FEB 28, 2006 09:00:01 ET XXXXX

BUSH CHEERS DECLINE OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA, RISE OF ALTERNATIVE PRESS

**Exclusive**

ROVE SLAMS DAN RATHER: NOT A 'SERIOUS' REPORTER

President Bush, for the first time, is hailing the rise of the alternative media and the decline of the mainstream media, which he now says “conspired” to harm him with forged documents.

“I find it interesting that the old way of gathering the news is slowly but surely losing market share,” Bush said in an exclusive interview for the new book STRATEGERY. “It’s interesting to watch these media conglomerates try to deal with the realities of a new kind of world.”

[STRATEGERY was ranked #5 on AMAZON.COM's sales chart early Tuesday morning.]

For example, journalist Dan Rather left the anchor chair at CBS News after Internet reporters revealed he had used forged documents to criticize Bush’s military record in September 2004. The forgeries, which Bush now calls a conspiracy, ended up helping his reelection campaign, he acknowledged in the Oval Office interview.

“It looks like somebody conspired to float false documents,” the president tells author Bill Sammon. “And I was amazed about it. I just couldn’t believe that would be happening [and] then it would become the basis of a fairly substantial series of news stories.”

He added: “Then there was a backlash to it. I mean, a lot of people were angry that this could have happened. A lot of Americans are fair people and they viewed this as patently unfair. So in a funny way, I guess it inured to our benefit, when it was all said and done.”

The episode, known as “Memogate,” inoculated Bush against further scrutiny of his National Guard record for the duration of the presidential campaign.

“It also, frankly, gave us an opportunity, frequently, when things came out in the media that we didn’t believe or didn’t like, to say, ‘It’s another CBS story,’” said Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, who was the president’s campaign manager. “I mean, it gave us a serious response to bad news.”

Although Memogate was initially expected to harm the president, it ended up backfiring spectacularly on the press.

“The guy that it hurt most was Dan Rather and the executives at CBS,” White House strategist Karl Rove said in an interview for STRATEGERY. “It further disgraced a network which is third in ratings and, if you look at the demographics of their consumers, it’s like 70 percent Democrat.”

Rove said Rather’s eagerness to broadcast obviously forged documents proves he is “no serious reporter.” As for Rather’s insistence, to this day, that the documents are real, Rove said: “That’s really bias.”

Memogate has helped accelerate the decline of the mainstream media, generally defined as CBS, NBC, ABC, The New York Times and other establishment news outlets.

“I think what’s healthy is that there’s no monopoly on the news,” Bush said. “There’s competition. There’s competition for the attention of, you know, 290 million people, or whatever it is.

“And the amazing thing about this world we live in is that there’s a kind of free-flowing, kind of bulletin board of ideas and thoughts out there in the ether space, sometimes landing on somebody’s desk and sometimes not, but always available. It’s a very interesting period.”

Having long been pilloried by the mainstream media, Bush now finds the rise of the alternative media nothing less than revolutionary.

“It’s the beginning of the twenty-first century; it also happens to be the beginning of—or near the beginning—of a revolution in newsgathering and dissemination,” he said. “Not in newsmaking—that tends to be pretty consistent.”

Rove considers Memogate a watershed in the rise of the alternative media.

“The whole incident in the fall of 2004 showed really the power of the 'blogosphere',” he said in his West Wing office.

“Because in essence you had now, an army of self-appointed experts looking over the shoulder of the mainstream media and bringing to bear enormously sophisticated skills,” he added.

Still, Rove cautioned that the Internet’s political potential has a darker side.

“There is so much ugliness and viciousness and fundamental untruths that the blogosphere transmits,” he lamented. “It also is a vehicle for ugly rumors, for scurrilous personal attacks, an avenue for the creation of urban legends which are deeply corrosive of the political system and of people’s faith in it.”

Rove said Rather and his producer, Mary Mapes, were gunning for the president and trying to help his challenger, Sen. John Kerry, by broadcasting the forged documents in the heat of the presidential campaign.

“From her body language and his body language, their enthusiasm for this story was in large measure fed by the belief that they were playing a constructive and perhaps determinative role in the presidential campaign,” Rove said of Mapes and Rather.

“They made a decision in this instance – I think quite prematurely and quite unfairly – to pursue a story that attacked the president,” he added. “And I thought it was, to me, one of the most incredible examples of how fundamentally unfair it was.”

Rove expressed astonishment that CBS ignored the warnings of document experts hired by the network to authenticate the National Guard memos.

“It goes back to the failure of the mainstream media, in this instance, to honor their own experts,” he said.

Rove is not the only senior Bush adviser who considers the mainstream media biased against the conservative president. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card was outraged that the TV networks refused to declare Bush the winner on Election Night, even after all the votes were counted in the pivotal state Ohio and it became obvious Kerry could not win.

“Some of the talking heads,” Card said, “were rooting for a crisis in Ohio. It wasn’t just that they were afraid to admit we had won.”

Card became particularly incensed when Bush’s Ohio lead reached 120,000 votes, which was mathematically insurmountable.

“Nobody wanted to call it so that we had won,” he said. “It was like, c’mon, are they just afraid to say it?”

Developing...

[pleikumud]

http://www.dod.gov/
The Defense Dept is a good source. But as you know there are thousands of online sources, foreign and domestic, so in my opinion rags such as the N.Y. Times, Washington Post, and the TV "news" shows, have been dinosaurs for years. Last time I bought the NY Times was about 1969. Don't even know what Tom Brokaw looks like anymore. Jane Pauley? Katie Who? Dan Rathernot? And Peter Jennings is retired now? :)

[FreedomFarmer]

Out here, in the middle of nowhere, the little little community papers have mostly died off, except for the paper that gets the county's official reports.

The city papers are buying those little survivors to pad their own circulation numbers.

The usual method of operation is to fire the old staff, sell the press, hire a few part-time 'writers', and appoint a managing editor, (usually another part-timer).

The paper is then printed on the City Paper's press, with the predictable boiler plate, propaganda, and space filler.

The locals just provide the obits, social, and sports scores.

[jaydubya2]

My kids have that puzzle!

[lexington minuteman 1775]

Hey he could be. Actually I would be surprised if someone on his staff is not assigned to lurk here to see what American conservatives are posting.Let's all behave ;-)

[SittinYonder]

I'm not comfortable trusting any government website as my news source. I get your point about the DOD, but what about the IRS?

When I raised this question before on a similar thread, someone suggested to me that local governments can post news on websites and then people won't need small weekly papers in their communities anymore either.

I don't know about where you live, but the communists who scare me most are the communists on my county commission and city council. I feel better knowing that the local paper is sitting at the meetings.

[manglor]

Peter Jennings checked out. But he can never leave.... Hotel KaliNewYorkistan.

[el_texicano]

Hehehehehe...Bush is provoking the antique media till they fall down lifeless and exhausted. Bwwwaahahahahaha...nothing like stirring up the ant's nest.

[God pays good]

I was flipping through channels last night and heard some anchor on MSNBC talking about Fox. He said, "Remember the saying, Fox not facts." I don't even know the anchor's name; so much for his influence. I also immediately turned on Fox and I count because I am part of a Neilson family.

[SittinYonder]

The city papers are buying those little survivors to pad their own circulation numbers.

I think to degrees that's true everywhere. That business model seems to be the trend. I also think the corporations are destroying those little survivors through their business model and will end up losing profits there, too.

Do you think they'll survive doing that?

Personally, I love my hometown weekly paper and look forward to it each week. My dad still gets the weekly paper from where he grew up and he hasn't lived there in 40 years or more.

I'm really interested in where this trend is going and what the end result will be.

[squarebarb]

There are always the wire services, which will keep up the tradition of being incredibly biased and misinformed if not outright liars.

Ap is so awful I can't believe they really think people believe what they write.

Then there is t.v.

But very few people are doing all the investigative reporting. Actual boots-on-the-ground work. Everybody feeds off those few people. Interesting situation. Like fewer and fewer taxpayers paying for more and more welfare leeches and corrupt government bureaucracies.

[bray]

Hey, upper right hand corner, the one with the tiny head - is that Buchanan?

No, it's mouth is shut! Probably the one trying to protect his market with draconian taxation of imports.

Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters

[buck61]

If you are a Republican and you listen to NPR, you know the TV part of NPR is funded by local contributions. When they start their fund drives in the Spring, turn them off.
I use to support them yrs. ago but no longer. I have noticed even at the local level how bias they have become.

[ClaireSolt]

The newspapers, for the most part, are rewriting copy that comes from the news wires, AP, UPI, and Reuters. I do think it would be good if there were another positive news news wire. However, one reason I like coming here is to read the information people add from their own experience.

[SoFloFreeper]

Damn. I'm gonna have to get this "Strategery" book...Drudge's drip drip from it is working...I want to buy.. :)

[SittinYonder]

Ap is so awful I can't believe they really think people believe what they write.

I wonder what would happen if AP weren't not-for-profit. Would bloggers subscribe to a news service?

[jdm]

New Media keeps gaining ground too. Look at the impact bloggers and the New Media had on the 2004 election. Since the MSM looks terrible, impotent and irrelevant now, imagine how awful and ineffectual it will be in 2 1/2 years, for the next Presidential election!

[buck61]

Way to go, stop funding this left wing ideology.

[SittinYonder]

I haven't listened to NPR since I broke up with a hippy I dated in college, and I haven't watched PBS since I stopped watching Seaseme Street. Even my kids didn't watch the PBS kids' shows - they watched Nick Jr.

The only thing worthwhile PBS has done that I'm aware of are the Ken Burns documentaries and "Commanding Heights."

[KC_Conspirator]

As for Rather's insistence, to this day, that the documents are real, Rove said: "That's really bias."

Thats really bs.

Dan Rather is a pathetic, lying sack. How many other times has he lied and pushed forgery as truth upon America?

[Beagle8U]

"I'm not saying I'll miss the liberal bias, and I won't miss editors attempting to set their own agendas. But I do wonder what will replace the Chicago Tribune or the Washington Post or the New York Times, for that matter."

Do you just skip the news threads that are posted live by FReepers that are there?

To know about the Canadian elections there was no better source of news than FR.
Ditto for the major storms and the gas shortage after the hurricanes.

All of the MSM wont be going out of business, just the liberal biased news that everyone now knows is made up lies.