Bush acknowledges American media revolution

Almost daily, there come reports and evidence of an American media revolution.

That long-time liberal combo of The Old Big Three – ABC, CBS, and NBC, which were once watched by 90 percent of all homes with television – have seen their audiences shrink by more than 50 percent of that one-time dominance.

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At the same time, such liberal newspaper giants as the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times are experiencing serious losses in circulation.

Columnist Brian Anderson (on that Great Leveler, the Internet) notes:

The rise of alternative media – political talk radio in the 1980s, cable news in the '90s, and the blogosphere in the new millennium – has broken the liberal monopoly over news and opinion outlets. The left understands acutely the implications of this revolution, blaming much of the Democratic Party's current electoral trouble on the influence of the new media's vigorous conservative voices.

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This is borne out in the result of a Harris Poll of 2,985 U.S. adults, which found that 64 percent got their news several times a week, or daily, by going online – which means the Internet.

UPI reports that this poll revealed that 1 percent less get their news from daily newspapers.

This Harris Poll also reported that 54 percent listen to radio news, while 37 percent listen to talk radio.

Talk radio is willing to devote 40 to 50 percent of its time to listener's expressed views, pro or con, on every issue, while newspapers and magazines devote barely 2 percent in letters to the editor.

On the Internet – and on talk radio – news can be nationally reported immediately instead of tonight on television, and tomorrow in newspapers.

The Internet's Drudge Report, for example, reported President Bush's statement recognizing this American media revolution:

I find it interesting that old way of gathering the news is slowly but surely losing market share. It's interesting to watch these media conglomerates try to deal with the realities of a new kind of world.

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Drudge reports Bush making these comments to Bill Sammon in an exclusive interview for Sammon's new book "Strategery." During the interview, the president goes on to say that after Internet reporters revealed that Dan Rather used forged documents to criticize Bush's military record in September 2004:

It looks like somebody conspired to float false documents. And I was amazed about it. I just couldn't believe that would be happening ... 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.

Drudge also reports Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman as saying: "It also, frankly, gave us an opportunity, frequently ... to say 'It's another CBS story.' I mean, it gave us a serious response to bad news."

And Karl Rove went on record with Sammon, too: "The guy that it hurt most was Dan Rather and the executives at CBS. 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."

Of the current American media revolution, President Bush added:

"I think what's healthy is that there's no monopoly on the news. There's competition ... The beginning of – or near the beginning of – a revolution in newsgathering and dissemination."