On today’s Wilshire & Washington, we ask the question: Who’s on top, the MSM or Digital Media? Who’s leading the discussion, why, and is it a good thing? To help us navigate this tricky landscape, we’ve got New York Times reporter Brian Stelter with us; Stelter covers television and digital media, and spent over three years as the editor of TVNewser.

We start with the health care debate, and how digital media has been driving a lot of this debate. Without the blogs, would the public option have lasted this long? Probably not. We tackle Obama’s First 100 Daysâ„¢. Remember how CNN covered that “story” and then how they covered Obama’s first 200 days as well? They called it news; I call it basic arithmetic. Obviously these stories are moves for higher ratings (isn’t CNN behind the Fly Fishing Network at this point?) but did it work? Is it good for us?

We continue our beat-down of CNN with the coverage of the Iranian Election. Digital media was all over that story, yet CNN – which wants to be a “serious” news channel – defended its lack of coverage (remember #cnnfail?) As Stelter notes, cable news needs to be a live stream, and once Iran became a story, CNN should have followed. But isn’t it a little unfair to bash CNN? Our standards for them are so high (we don’t expect the same from MSNBC or Fox) but when CNN covers silly issues like Michael Jackson’s funeral so extensively, it just confuses us.

While digital has had its moments this year, Stelter believes the MSM is still driving the story most of the time, especially with topics like Afghanistan and Iraq, which – because of cost and safety – are impossible for bloggers to really cover. Then again, the major networks didn’t even have Kabul bureaus for years, even though we had a war going on in Afghanistan. Good job, guys. This begs the question: Should the MSM actually cover active US warzones? No? Err…

Finally, we discuss a couple of those nutty stories in the past year – balloon boy, the arrest of the Harvard Professor for being black and in his home, what kind of beer Obama is drinking… you know, real stories. With things like these dominating MSM coverage, don’t we need a filter for all these non-stories? (I’m told this filter is usually called “editors.” Never heard of ‘em.) And as we distribute, and redistribute, news and content, shouldn’t we ourselves take some responsibility and ask, “Is this news good for us?”

Listen to the show here, subscribe to the iTunes podcast, or use the Blog Talk Radio player to the right.

Wilshire & Washington, the weekly Blog Talk Radio program that explores the intersection of politics, entertainment, and new media, features co-hosts Ted Johnson, Managing Editor of Variety; conservative blogger Teresa Valdez Klein (www.teresacentric.com), and liberal blogger Maegan Carberry (www.maegancarberry.com). The show airs every Wednesday at 7:30am PST on BlogTalkRadio.com.

It’s been a crazy week, and it’s only Wednesday! Since their election on Friday, Iranians have been burning up the Twittersphere, drumming up support abroad and organizing protests internally. Why has Twitter suddenly gone political? Finally appreciating the service, Ted exposes his luddite roots, and Teresa helpfully explains why Twitter is so difficult to block, even in a country like Iran. (It’s basically impossible to stop people from sharing information on the Internet.)

So will people start relying more on Twitter for their news? Is this a shift for journalism? Can citizen journalists do a better job of covering things like the Iranian protests? CNN and the rest of the MSM certainly could’ve done better this weekend – check out the #CNNfail hashtag or the anger during the #140conf in New York – but couldn’t professional news organizations be doing more to use services like Twitter? The wisdom of the crowd is great, but who’s going to fact check all the information coming out of Twitter? Couldn’t it be the MSM interpreting and confirming this massive output of information?

Most of us are aggregators and distributors on Twitter anyway, and that shouldn’t be confused with actual in-depth, critical, original journalism. It’s like a game of “hot potato” with information. Some people cast this as MSM vs Social Media, but that’s a false argument, as our Prez likes to say. Aren’t Twitter feeds, Maegan suggests, just like AP/Reuter wire services in some ways?

We also talk President Obama’s lame attempt to appease the gay community, which sounds more like a fundraising stunt than anything else, and that ridiculous Letterman-Palin feud over the last week. (Does anyone even care about the Alaskan Governor anymore? If we stop talking about her, will she cease to exist? Kind of like Alf?)

Listen to the show here, subscribe to the iTunes podcast, or use the Blog Talk Radio player to the right.

Wilshire & Washington, the weekly Blog Talk Radio program that explores the intersection of politics, entertainment, and new media, features co-hosts Ted Johnson, Managing Editor of Variety; conservative blogger Teresa Valdez Klein (www.teresacentric.com), and liberal blogger Maegan Carberry (www.maegancarberry.com). The show airs every Wednesday at 7:30am PST on BlogTalkRadio.com.