New Media A Threat To Old Alaska Guard

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Remember the good old days when politicians faced scrutiny in discrete media — print, radio and television? No longer. New media convergence is here and it’s killing folks like Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), according to the NBC affiliate in Alaska, KTUU.

KTUU said there’s a new rule for politicians: “if it’s out there, it’s going everywhere.”

Stevens learned that lesson last week when the Anchorage Daily News posted audio from an editorial board interview on its site, where Stevens complained that the paper is out to “assassinate” him. It was a big first for the paper and popular with several other outlets that picked it up (cough), including a local radio show that aired parts of the interview.

From KTUU:

Michael Carey, former editorial page editor of the Anchorage Daily News, now host of public television’s “Anchorage Edition,” says Alaska’s congressional delegation is struggling with the interconnecting worlds of print, internet and broadcast journalism.

“Anybody who’s in this business realizes the universe is changing and changing dramatically,” Carey said. “I think this is something that’s happened to Sen. Stevens and our whole congressional delegation in the so-called scandal story, of them finding themselves not just on television or in conventional print, but all over the universe in forms that they couldn’t imagine with different people they’ve never heard of.”

We’re reminded of another Alaska pol, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), whose spokesman told the Anchorage Daily News that they didn’t answer TPMmuckraker questions about Murkowski’s questionable land deal because we were “an unfamiliar media outlet.” It’s a new day!

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