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The NY Times reports on how talk radio and the internet allowed Republicans to get their media-fisking messages out unfiltered by the political sieve of the print press:

Republicans on talk radio, the Internet and some cable television talk shows accused the newspaper of shilling for Gov. Gray Davis. And many voters agreed. "This is a Davis ploy — he's the king of dirty tricks," one Schwarzenegger voter said, adding, "If anything, it made me want to vote for him more."

Mr. Schwarzenegger's election put more than incumbent politicians on notice. It also gave pause to the establishment news media, with implications that go beyond a single governor's race, political and media analysts said. Other candidates running as outsiders — like Howard Dean and Gen. Wesley K. Clark — are proving they can overcome potentially damaging coverage by positioning the news media as part of the establishment they are fighting.

They are being helped by two increasingly important factors. More outlets are available on radio, cable and the Web where partisan commentators can make their cases, unfiltered, to ever-larger audiences. And polls show that the public's perception of the mainstream news media is growing more negative.

"The media couldn't stop us because the people are becoming savvy to the media," said Jesse Ventura, the former wrestler who was governor of Minnesota from 1999 to this year, referring to Mr. Schwarzenegger and himself. "They're realizing the media's dishonest."

Mimicking the Schwarzenegger campaign's line that the Los Angeles Times articles about groping were a result of "puke politics" by the Davis campaign, Rush Limbaugh, the radio talk show host, told listeners on Election Day that the newspaper's journalists were "dastardly political assassins who use ink instead of bullets to hit candidates under the cover of objective journalism."

Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack