"All that is old and already formed can continue to live only if it allows within itself the conditions of a new beginning."
Will Ventura Devise a Web Spin Cycle?
Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura has minced no words while venting his animosity toward the media that -- for better or worse -- have made him what he is. Not only has he steadfastly refused to talk to local Minnesota reporters of just about any stripe, this week he told a national newsmagazine that once he's out of office, he will wage a personal war against them.
Ventura does seem to like national attention; his appearances on David Letterman, for instance, make for great TV entertainment. But Ventura plainly dislikes local coverage, especially from Minnesota's capitol corps with all their probing, discomfiting questions, and their interpretive reporting of his answers.
So what if the governor could find a way to circumvent pesky local press entirely? What if he launched an Internet-only information organ -- call it the Jesse News Network -- and simply ignore the mainstream press? What would happen if the media, and hence the public, were left with no local fount of gubernatorial information, other than Ventura's own dry-cleaned, unfiltered, and very positive spin on himself?
"Obviously, that would be nirvana for any politician," said Tim McGuire, editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Jesse News Network
The possibility is being discussed. Phil Madsen, founder of Minnesota's Reform Party and Jesse Ventura's personal Webmaster, is busy figuring out the specs. He has already purchased Internet domain names for JesseNewsNetwork.com, JesseNewsNetwork.net, and JesseNewsNetwork.org.
"I could see having a news crew of 50 people," Madsen said. "You'd have an assignment desk, you'd need an editor, you'd need camera crews to follow the governor around, reporters to write about stuff. It would be a great thing for a college journalism student."
Madsen, whose volunteer Web team is sometimes credited with swinging Minnesota's tight 1998 gubernatorial election to Ventura, is quick to point out that "there is nothing now that would even remotely approach something called a 'Jesse News Network.'" However, he said, the project -- which would represent an expansion of the existing Web service called "Jesse Net" -- is on the drawing board. "As time permits and as volunteers become available, we would be interested in moving in that direction," he said.
The service would include an opinion section, the function of which would be to clarify some of Ventura's more controversial remarks, such as the governor's oft-reported quip in Playboy that the Tailhook scandal was "much ado about nothing." Madsen points out that many news organizations failed to include Ventura's preface to that statement, which indicated he does not condone the sexual misconduct that took place during Tailhook. The site would make sure Ventura's side of the story got out, he said.
"The way I envision it, there might a couple of writers who would elaborate on what the governor said, or express opinions about it," Madsen said. "Or maybe a pro or con section about what was going on."
The site would also monitor as much Ventura news coverage as possible, and then "grade" it. News operations deemed fair in their reporting would get good marks on the site, while those considered unfair or inaccurate would get bad grades.
Madsen said the site "would make no pretense of objectivity."
'That's scary'
"That's scary," said Dave Pyle, Minneapolis bureau chief of The Associated Press. "I think what you'd have out there would be a public relations arm masquerading as a journalism task force."
However, Pyle -- like every other journalist approached to speak about the prospective Ventura Web service -- doesn't see a Jesse News Network as much of a threat to business.
"You've got to give the public more credit than I think these people are," Pyle said. "Think of how people take in news of their representatives in Congress. They hardly depend on a senator's own Web site for information about that the senator. The public knows that the information there is going to be spun to the benefit of the person who has the Web site. It would be no different for Gov. Ventura."
Not an initiative of the governor's office
There are a lot of unanswered questions about the viability of Madsen's idea. Who would pay for it? How would it be possible to keep 50 reliable, trained, and able volunteers on-hand to provide its content? How would it be coordinated within the administration? Interestingly, John Wodele, Ventura's communications chief, says he knows nothing more about the project than what he read in a recent news article.
"It's not an initiative of this office," Wodele said. "How we go about making decisions on media is an internal process. I would ... say only that I'm not aware of the Jesse News Network. I'm not familiar with it, haven't been briefed on it, don't know anything about it."
Madsen acknowledges he has not discussed anything specifically called "Jesse News Network" with the governor; he said the idea and the name were suggested to him by a newspaper reporter. But he said he has discussed with Ventura as recently as September the idea of adding workers and expanding the function of the current Jesse Net online service, and that the governor favors the idea. Ventura himself was not available for comment.
Another facet of the Internet
Howard Kurtz, media critic for The Washington Post and co-host of CNN's journalistically navel-gazing "Reliable Sources" program, sees the online news network idea as just another facet of a trend in which politicians are finding ways to exploit the new medium to their advantage. "We're already moving in the direction of politicians using the Internet to peddle their message and raise big bucks," Kurtz said. "If Jesse Ventura takes it a step further by setting up a news site, he may have plenty of officeholders following him."
But even the prospect of an army of politicians, attempting to steer around reporters by utilizing the Web as a spin-control device, is hardly daunting, Kurtz insists. Few people will ever see those sites, and politicians need public exposure. "Such Web sites tend to attract true believers," Kurtz said. "I don't think the average person will confuse it with real 'news.'"
Jim Ragsdale, political reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, said the idea of the governor steering clear of reporters by utilizing the Web is no surprise, because the Ventura camp seems so convinced that all reporters are biased against him. Ragsdale even sees a Jesse News Network as potentially a positive thing, given some caveats.
"If a politician is responding to questions and dealing with issues as they come up, but also has some alternative way of communicating with his or her own people, I don't see how you can criticize them," Ragsdale said. "That's their business, isn't it? It's a free country."
However, Ragsdale said, "If that same politician completely ignores the questioning that the barking dogs provide, and then grants, quote, 'interviews,' unquote, to some friendly state-owned media, that would be somewhat scary."
The Star Tribune's McGuire is blunt in his assessment of the scheme, which he said is hardly worth worrying about. All politicians, to a lesser or greater extent, have always tried to manage their message, he said. This, then, is nothing new.
"I'm not going to lose a wink over it," McGuire said. "I think anybody who gets exercised about this doesn't have enough to do."
Originally published by Editor & Publisher, Oct. 21, 1999
Kevin Featherly, a former managing editor at Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, is a Minnesota journalist who covers politics and technology. He has authored or contributed to five previous books, Guide to Building a Newsroom Web Site (1998), The Wired Journalist (1999), Elements of Language (2001), Pop Music and the Press (2002) and Encyclopedia of New Media (2003). His byline has appeared in Editor & Publisher, the San Francisco Chronicle, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Online Journalism Review and Minnesota Law and Politics, among other publications. In 2000, he was a media coordinator for Web, White & Blue, the first online presidential debates.
Copyright 2004, by Kevin Featherly