Image courtesy of Jossip

I was invited to attend the Reuters' Newmaker Event : Public figures, Private Lives.

The focus was actually on celebrities, paparazzi and the rise new media upstarts like Perez Hilton, Jossrip or the indy image agency Splash News. You all know who Perez and Jossip are. SplashNews, though, is the little company that could --they were the ones who snagged the rights to the "drunken stepfather" photographs of Mel Gibson; the ones taken minutes before his DWI arrest and anti-semitic ranting.

David has an excellent recap over at Jossip. He tells of how Bonnie Fuller polygraphs sources on some of their scoops. Crazy! Given that she is the biggest purveyor of gossip-as-cracktainment, this bit of news proves Bonnie Fuller is the Donna of the biggest gossip mafia in the world.

That's so hot!

This being Reuters though, the conversation when from gossip to politics thanks to Mark Foley. And of course, it was used as a moment to bitch-slap "the blogs".

Sigh.

A year ago I debated with Paul Holmes, the chief editor of Reuters global news division, about myths rurrounding blogs. A year has passed, much has happened since, and he's totally hit to blogging. But somehow these panels end up into blogsmears and now the shift is from "bloggers are rookies nobody should pay attention to" to "if Democrats/Lamont/candidate-of-your-choice looses, it will show how "the blogs" can't be trusted".

Given the room was full of editors, lawyers and VPs from ABC, CNN, MSNBC, AP, Reuters, NewsCorp what I am sensing is a big backlash to come. For one, newspapers and media organizations are using blogs to monetize their content. Many media organizations have a vested interest in tarnishing the reputation of indy bloggers because they are advertising competition after all.

What I find particularly irritating about these attacks is that, not until the MSM deems something in a blog worthy of salacious publication will they not just jump on it, but poach it from the blogger.

Case in point? The 3 years of work that Michael has been doing over at BlogActive. Grock forgive they actually credit him with the work? I actually had to correct people four times yesterday on the little itsy bitsy detail that it was Michael who was on the Foley trail for three years not some cub reporter from (place whatever big media company name).

So when I pointed out the hypocricy there was an uncomfortable silence from the panel and, of all people, I had Hilary Rosen agreeing with me. The irony about her agreeing with me is the fact that her copyright infringement work for the RIAA (she helped cobble together the Digital Milleniun Copyright Act, after all) has made small publishers and independent bloggers more vulnerable to plagiarism and steling of content than the big media companies she defended.

The bottom line? "The blogs" have become controversially influential blogs in the media and political landscape --so much so that we should start calling them the 5th estate. Which is fine by me, but which led me to think about how intertwined media is to politics and ultimately every aspect of our government.

It's just really scary to think that the boob tube or even YouTube, has more power in our government than my vote.