Meet The New Press

Yet another first for this member of the Weekend Pundit team – a guest stint on one of the local radio talk shows.

Meet The New Press is hosted by three members of the new media, Doug Lambert, Skip Murphy, and Pat Hynes, local bloggers here in central New Hampshire, Doug and Skip both post to two blogs – GraniteGrok, a blog that focuses on state issues; and GilfordGrok, a blog dedicated to issues in our home town. Pat posts at AnkleBitingPundits.

The show airs on Saturday afternoons on news/talk radio station WEMJ-AM 1490 in Laconia.

This isn't my first time as a guest on a radio show, though it is my first time on a US station. (My first appearance on a radio station as anything other than a DJ was on Isle of Wight Radio in the UK a couple of months after 9/11.)

I think a local show that highlights the 'new media' helps to explain the differences between the traditional media – newspapers, TV, radio – and the new media – blogs - and how they differ and can make a difference in covering local stories and local politics. They have already made a difference in national media, particularly in politics. (Rathergate, anyone?)

It was good to be back behind a mike again.

While I wasn't the center of attention, I did not mind in the least. After all the show is headed by these guys, not me. But it was fun, particularly when we got to comparing the old media with the new media. Where once we followed the MSM, being watchdogs, we now lead and the MSM looks to us.

Local matters were a big focus, with a lot of discussion about the upcoming town budget and the controversy about the town's budget committee. A few townsfolk seem to think that a budget committee should rubber stamp the proposed budget and warrant articles rather than look closely at every expenditure and asking questions. Excuse me? How is it that looking out for the taxpayers' money is a bad thing?

We also touched upon presidential politics. We all bashed Hillary, particularly about her comments dealing with the taxes and oil company profits. We looked over the Republican candidate line up, and none of us were impressed Mitt by Romney. John McCain and Rudi Giuliani topped the list of our favorites of the Republican candidates. I also got a plug in for Fred Thompson, former US Senator from Tennessee, former US Attorney, and TV/movie actor.

One of the other topics the show touched upon was global warming, something that anyone reading this blog knows I am passionate about. Not that I say that it's entirely human driven. On the contrary, I am more in the solar activity-driven camp when it comes to climate change, as were my hosts.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. I'd forgotten how much fun it can be and I hope they'll invite me back.

A podcast of this show can be found here sometime on Sunday.