More on Alternative Media.

by Little Miss Attila on September 28, 2009

Jimmy Bise, writing at Right Wing News, taking on the notion popularized by Stacy McCain that the conservative movement needs “more Bob Novaks”—that is, more reporters:

What conservatives need aren’t more Bob Novaks but more Andrew Breitbarts, Al Regnerys, and a George Soros or two. If conservatives with money would fund places for budding journalists to get their work in front of a decent-sized audience, there would be lots of Bob Novaks, Byron Yorks, Mark Hemingways, Matthew Vadums, and Stacy McCains showing up. Running a web site isn’t the hardest thing in the world to do, but it does take time. There are plenty of folks who could set up and run a site that does original reporting, but they have to have something approaching a credible budget not just to pay for the reporters but also to pay for their own time. It amazes me how much work we on the right get out of part-time and freelance writers but it should not be that way.

Charlie Crist, who will be a continual thorn in conservatives’ sides if he’s elected to the Senate, raised $4.3 million in just one quarter this year. That much money could fund a good conservative news site for at least five years, if not more like eight. Do you know how much good reporting we could get with a budget of just $500,000 a year? Think about it. Play with the numbers. You think I couldn’t land Vadum and McCain for 70 grand a year, plus add in Ace and Moe Lane for blogging power at the same amount? That’s only $280,000. Set aside fifty grand for tech stuff (hosting, design, troubleshooting) and advertising, another 60K for expenses (to pay reporters to go on the road and for freelancers), 60K for an editor, and 50K to me for supervising the whole operation and there you go. There’s $500,000 a year. And that doesn’t count any potential income the site might get from outside advertising, which you know it’ll get. As the site grows, the budget can creep up, but only for people who will add direct value to the site, but we add on as advertising revenues warrant the increase.

Divide $500,000 into $4.3 million. That’s how long I could run a hypothetical conservative news site with the money dunderheaded conservatives gave Charlie Crist in just three months. Meanwhile, Stacy had to rattle the tip jar so hard his teeth ached to get just a few hundred bucks to do some original reporting in rural Kentucky. That’s ridiculous.

Now, how many scoops will that buy you every year, Mr. Rich Conservative? Four? Five? How do you like the idea of Stacy McFreakingCain prowling Capitol Hill five days a week and writing until 5 AM? How about having Matthew Vadum on ACORN’s case all the time? You want traffic numbers? Ace and Moe will bring you crazy traffic and you can be darned sure that Rush and Mark Levin will be reading the news they report on their radio shows. We won’t be without contacts.

They want direct power more than they want to disseminate information. And on the whole that’s rather sad.

Jimmy is correct: the right side of the blogosphere is tremendously undercapitalized, and there are a lot of people who could do real reporting if they had the economic resources to do so.

For instance, I’d love to do more energy reporting, and I’m ideally situated to do so here in Southern California, but I have to hold down my day job. I can live on very little, but I can’t live on air.

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Jimmie September 28, 2009 at 7:52 pm

Thank you for that.

I think the right still hasn’t realized that the entire notion of what a journalist is has dialed all the way back to the pamphleteers of the Revolutionary War era. If we really want to take back a chunk of he culture, we’re going to have to start with news reporting.

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