Angry in the Great White North
President Bush calls on the blogs
Wednesday, March 22, 2006 at 03:02 PM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
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From Expose the Left:

President Bush spoke to military and civilian families in Wheeling, West Virginia this afternoon about the War in Iraq. As usual, he spent a long period of time with the audience to answer the questions they may have. One woman, a military wife, told President Bush about her husband’s career as a military broadcast journalist and the footage he got about how great things are going in Iraq. She told the President that many cable news channels are just not reporting good news and only the bad news. She wanted to know what people could do to see the good happening in Iraq.

The President's answer:

Help over there will ya? I just got to keep talking and word of mouth, there’s blogs, there’s internet, there’s all kinds of way to communicate which is literally changing the way people get their information and so if you’re concerned I would suggest that you reach out to some of the groups that are supporting the troops, that got internet sites and just keep the word moving.

A video of the encounter is available there as well.

There is a message to the main stream media here -- control of the national agenda is slipping, and the administration is well aware of alternative ways to get information out and how to use these alternatives to frame the debate. In Canada too, the situation has changed. While in Ottawa, I spoke to several senior people in the Harper government, and each had the same thing to say -- the last election was the breakout election for the blogs. Blogs played a role larger than maybe is appreciated, and that role is only going to grow.

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