Follow the Money

I am Hanna Ingber Win, and I’m one of the USC bloggers. I am a graduate journalism student at USC Annenberg. I write a column and contribute blog entries for PopandPolitics.com. I have been writing about gangs, cops and my personal life. This week, I am blogging about blogging.

Michael Cornfield kicked off the Politics in Cyberspace seminar this morning as he gave tips to the journalists in the room on how to better cover politics and the 2008 political campaign.  He argued that journalists should focus on covering the donors to political campaigns because donors are a “rich lode that should be mined.”

Donors are crucial, he said, because they control the money, which controls the campaign.  “Money is an endorsement...an investment,” he said.

He also argued that the journalists should focus on interviewing donors because the bloggers are doing everything, except interviews.

But why? Why aren’t bloggers doing more interviews? Are they lazy? Clearly not. So why?

After the talk, Alfred Hermida, who teaches at the School of Journalism at the University of British Columbia, told me bloggers don’t interview much because they like to offer commentary, opinion. But what about columnists like Nicholas Kristof? They do plenty of interviews and offer commentary. Isn’t the best commentary from well-informed writers?

Bloggers should take Cornfield’s advice: go interview donors. They hold the power to politics. What will the traditional journalists do then? Well, do it better.