LA Press Club: Hewitt Speaks at LA Athletic Club About Blogging

First some relentless "name dropping!"

As a low in the food chain blogger, it was pretty neat to see some of the bigger fish in the blogosphere.

Talked to or saw the following: World's Laziest Journalist, Justene of CalBlog, Baldilocks, Gay Patriot, Boi from Troy, Jill Stewart, LA Observed, SoCalPundit, LA Guy of Pajama Guy, Cathy's World, and Advice Goddess Amy Alkon.

It is really interesting to see that there are actual people behind these blogs.

My biggest highlight was talking for a few minutes with Hugh Hewitt! He asked me what I did for a day job and where I went to school. He also mentioned he saw my blog come up when he ran a Technorati check on his blog. He mentioned, you had a post about tonight's LA Press Club event. I told him I listen to his radio show and have enjoyed blogging.

The other highlight was meeting Mickey Kaus of Kausfiles at Slate.com. He and Pajama Guy debated the merits and problems of the filibuster on judicial nominations. I told him I like his straight shooting style of writing.

As for the actual talk by Hugh Hewitt, he made the following points: (1) the Los Angeles Times has a circulation of 900,000 which is about the same as in 1969. However, the area's population has doubled. This says the newspaper is in trouble. (2) People are now getting their news online and thus not seeing the ads in the hardcopy of the newspaper. This is a problem for all the traditional media forms not just the LA Times. (3) The Los Angeles Times is like the Titanic. It could go down fast from hitting the iceberg of advancing technology and the biased tilt of the paper. But even if the iceberg doesn't sink it, the long term trends are away from traditional media.

He went on to suggest that advertisers of the future will buy ads on blogs because they are so targeted. He mentioned that the Craig's List phenomena is essentially making classified ads in newspapers useless.

He said he was encouraged by the LA Times new effort called "Outside the tent" where bloggers can have a place in the paper periodically but that LA Times needs to do more.

The next part of the evening had Roger Simon and Armed Liberal talk about their idea for a media company with affiliated blogs from all over the world. Advertisers could then buy ads in the blogosphere. Another aspect of the alliance would be a news service. With bloggers all over the world, it could become a news service to rival AP.

There were a few brief remarks from the editor from the LA Times who runs "Outside the Tent." He joked he was the designated pinata for the evening. He felt that the LA Times and all traditional media do face challenges but he didn't think the situation was as dire as painted by Hewitt.

All in all an interesting evening with the people at the forefront of the new media movement that is the blogs.

Stay tuned. If that blog consortium really starts up, I may sign up this humble outpost!

UPDATE: Here is the Pajamas Media description from Roger L. Simon. HT to Instapundit.