7/28/09

IS RE-SHARING NEWS, ITSELF NEWS? HUFFINGTON POST TRANSCRIBES PART OF CNN AND LARRY KING'S INTERVIEW WITH FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL

As posted by Sonoma County Democracy for America, and reflective of various sites picking up the "story" that Colin Powell, "in an interview with CNN's Larry King," suggested that both Sergeant Crowley and Professor Gates could have acted a bit differently:

by The Huffington Post News Team [courtesy of Politics on HuffingtonPost.com]

Technically, this is true. The "Huffington Post "news team"very briefly summarized this portion of the interview, and provided the video itself and a convenient transcript of it. Still, we are pretty comfortable with the impression that it was CNN that produced the actual news here.

This is not to say that the Huffington Post did not provide a valuable service, or that acknowledgements are not appropriate. But it seems that somewhat lost in this acknowledgement is the fact that CNN produced the relevant news; the Huffington Post then made the news on TV, easily available online.

The "By The Huffington Post News Team," along with "courtesy of Politics on Huffington Post," phrasing, might subtly suggest that the Huffington Post engaged in actual news reporting here. That is, we tend to think of the "news team" not as the team that gathers the news, but one that is the original reporter or, as in the case of CNN and Larry King's interview, creates it.

Perhaps that is no longer clearly the case.

The Huff Post indeed has a very cost efficient model. But could it be replicated, in the absence of the actual CNNs, the NY Times', and the scores of other "real" news" services? (Note, the Hufffinton Post also itself engages in reporting, serving a quasi blog -- news function; part of the reason why this question is more than esoteric.)

Below, we suggested (on the otherwise same topic of Professor Gates arrest in his own home):
As the wonderful Althouse re-reports (indulging in what, for the most part, passes for the reporting that the "online blogosphere" must over rely upon in order to replace traditional, necessary, hard hitting investigative journalism with -- a large part of the reason why we are sour on the claim that with the "rise" of the blogosphere, the demise of today's mainstream media is somehow less relevant) and we re-re-report..
Regarding the substance of what Powell said, see immediately below, here