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.

About this time last year Democratic strategists were patting each other on the back and congratulating each other on masterminding the enduring rise of The Progressive Majority built on the backs of bloggers and digital media as a messaging and fundraising machine. Republicans were supposedly leaps and bounds behind at that time, but after a year’s worth of execution on the part of both parties, it now looks like the space could be anyone’s to own and we’re about to see it all play out in 2010′s midterm elections.

Today we’re joined by Patrick Ruffini, a leading conservative blogger, and a partner at Engage and The Next Right, a forum for rising young leaders. Ruffini recently wrote a piece detailing how Obama’s official website has started fishing for emails again. What happened to that fabled 13 million person list of emails? Is the sign-up rate going down? Does this reflect the general discontent of Obama’s supporters with the glacial pace of change?

Ruffini also helps us look at the state of politics online as we approach 2010. Is the GOP in better position now to take the new media battle to the Democrats? It’s certainly possible, with Ruffini claiming that the conservative site Hot Air is getting more hits than DailyKos. We also take a look at what the internet has done to the political discourse, and how it reinforces people’s political opinions rather than informing them, and the problem with what is basically a “forever war” between the two parties. (At least it keeps all the political commentators employed!)

Finally, we talk Obama’s pro-war peace speech at the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Oslo, which was criticized by both the Right and the Left. Isn’t this what we asked for as a president? A nuanced, intelligent, thoughtful person who is considerate of all the complexities of war and peace? Oh, yeah, he’s a socialist and a puppet for the insurance industry. That’s right. Ok, no one liked it then, so how does Obama inspire us again? Does he make the campaign about us again, empowering individuals to make the change they wanted like he did in 2008? Or was that all a façade?

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.

In today’s show, we continue on our Twitter kick. Last week, we had David All, a conservative new media strategist, on to discuss how conservatives are winning the Twitter war and why it’s essential that they do. Today, we’ve got Jim Gilliam, co-founder of Brave New Films and Chief Technology Officer of Business.com, who recently created Tweetprogress.us, a directory of progressive tweeters and a place where people can be mentored in Twitter politics. Can progressives come back in the Twitter war? Is it important to people like Jim to push the #p2 hashtag? Is competition as much a part of the progressives on Twitter as it is for the conservatives? Jim makes some good points about the driving forces in elections; how the 2004 election was driven by blogs, how 2008 was driven by video, and how he believes 2012 will be driven by Twitter. A curious thought, sir, but can you imagine Mitt Romney twittering about his magic underpants in 2012? Hmm.

With the end of the August recess, the word is that President Obama is considering giving a major speech to Congress, outlining his healthcare demands. Oh yeah, and the public option might not be on the table. How disappointed are you if you’re a progressive right now? Does it feel odd to be agreeing with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid? I feel dirty, personally. But why is this happening? Is it Rahm Emanuel? His appointment was a big change in tone from the campaign, and putting such a hard-ball abrasive guy at the forefront of healthcare reform might have been a huge mistake.

While the administration is trying to get back to its roots, with the president holding a charming “huddle” with Organizing for America last week, Maegan believes Obama needs to get back online and start speaking to his people directly. Youtube it, baby! Also, it might help not to lump all young people together (college students and young professionals do not have the same priorities, yet they are both “young”) and to ask people to do more than just provide community service. Ted believes a big problem here is that Obama underestimated the trust factor – people don’t trust the government after eight years of blunders – and the voters aren’t too comfy with all these giant new government programs he’s pushing.

Finally, we touch on Glenn Beck, who thoughtfully decided to call Obama a racist, and how this fine, upstanding boy scout could be the future face of the Republican Party; but that’s probably a bad idea. Mitt Romney and Tim Pawplenty, however, both seem to be poised to reposition themselves as potential leaders for 2012 over such populist politicians as Mike Huckabee. Time to start watching the Iowa papers, everyone!

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 Tea-Bagging-Tea-Party-Glenn-Beck’s-Birthday-Day! Everyone’s going wild about getting tea-bagged today, with parties taking place in major cities all across the country to protest Obama raising taxes and bailing out Wall Street. But what’s interesting to us is how all this is being organized. Twitter, Facebook, and blogs have turned into a huge organizing tool for this group, with #teaparty trending to the top of Twitter’s search. So here’s the big question: how should new technologies, like Twitter and Facebook, be used in campaigns, and how should they be used in government?

Adriel Hampton, a news commentator, new media pundit, and investigator with the San Francisco DA Office, is running for Congress in California’s 10th Congressional District and he joins our hosts Ted Johnson and Maegan Carberry to talk twitter and populism, how the mainstream media has mostly ignored the tea parties, and how government shouldn’t waste this activist energy, no matter which party it belongs to. What’s with Obama stopping his twitter feed just because he’s not in office? Doesn’t that show how the administration isn’t being engaged technologically? Can the Republicans really take this populist “revolt” and somehow organize it for the next election? We also get a friendly call from Steve, a fellow BlogTalkRadio, wondering why the media isn’t taking the tea-bag parties seriously?

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.

The blogosphere and twittersphere have been, um, a-twitter this week about the future of the newspaper world. The Chicago Tribune is going tabloid. Gasp! The Atlantic says the NY Times could be out of business by May. Oh no! The Seattle PI is going to either close or be sold. Oh my! BlogTalkRadio purchases a controlling interest in Julius Genachowski’s FCC? Not yet…

New media guru Jason Preston of Eat, Sleep, Publish and the Parnassus Group, stops by to talk this week’s madness. Can newspapers, like the Seattle PI, survive as online only? What’s the future model for advertising? Can they change the approach to gathering content, even including – and paying for – writing from users (a.k.a. crowdsourcing)? How can advertisers and newspapers engage with social media to actually speak to their readers? And what are the WSJ and the Financial Times doing right, so they can charge for their content?

Ted Johnson, our usual moderator, is out this week, taken ill by a rare strain of “I’m going to the Inauguration in DC and I need to get better!” Look for next week’s awesome show Wednesday with both Ted and Maegan live from our nation’s capital, while Teresa infiltrates the CNN-Facebook inaugural experience.

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

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.