June 01, 2005

Did a Blog Break the Story?

On Thursday, I pointed out that Teddy Bart may be taking credit for breaking the Tennessee Waltz story, but that Rep. Stacey Campfield may have beat him to the punch. I was wrong on one account...the time.

The timestamps on Rep. Campfield's blog are off by an hour. For some reason, his blog timestamps show up an hour behind (I double checked this through Bloglines). His first post on the arrests was, according to the timestamp, at 6:57 AM. That would make it 7:57 AM Central Standard Time with a second and third post with a few other details coming in at 8:15 AM CST and 8:36 AM CST. That first post is still a full 15-30 minutes before Teddy Bart supposedly broke the story. Even the second post beat out Teddy Bart (the third is too close to call).

Today's Nashville City Paper has an editorial discussing the dissemination of information via blogs, but it gives credit to Teddy Bart for breaking the story and naming the first two to be arrested...

The story that legislators were being arrested and handcuffed began about 8:15 a.m. Thursday morning on "Teddy Bart's Round Table." The public affairs radio show, hosted by Teddy Bart and Karlen Evins on WAMB-AM 1160, has a section of the program called "What do you hear?" where hosts and guests can tell listeners the inside scoop about various issues.

Political consultant Bill Fletcher, who we're guessing was not relishing what he was reading over his Blackberry, reported that legislators were being "arrested as we speak."

Evins then tapped into some of her Capitol Hill sources to reveal the first two names on the arrest list.

Rep. Campfield not only beat them in breaking the story, but he also named the first two to be arrested several minutes before Bart did (Bart's press release said 8:30, by the way, so that's the time I'm going with...of course the 8:15 time in the City Paper would still be too late).

I will continue to stand by my assertion on Thursday that it was Rep. Campfield who broke the story...via a blog.

More: Bill Hobbs has commentary on the City Paper's editorial from the viewpoint of information dissemination.

More II: Bill Hobbs is saying that Campfield's blog timestamps may be off by two hours instead of one. If that's the case, then Teddy Bart's Roundtable did end up breaking the story first. I came to my determination using Bloglines, and the information could be off from there. Here's how I came about my conclusion:

Campfield's last post in bloglines (which I have set to Central Time) is showing up as 3:22 PM. On his blog, it shows up as 2:17 PM. Same timing exists with all the other posts (each one has a lag of about 5 minutes on bloglines).

As a control, Bloglines shows Instapundit's last post as 1:26 PM. On his blog, as expected, it shows up as 2:26 PM (since he is in the Eastern Time Zone, and my bloglines is set to CST).

On the other hand, Hobbs tested via Campfield's comments section, and that showed up as being off by two hours.

So...it may be off by two hours. Does anyone else have another way to test?

Comments:

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Right on.

Posted by: Doug Kenline at June 1, 2005 12:28 PM

You're right. It appears Stacey was first.
I think it's also important to mention the extraordinary job Bill Hobbs did with disseminating information quicker than any of the other media outlets as well on this issue.

Posted by: Sharon at June 1, 2005 12:51 PM

Blake, I think Campfield's blog timestamps are off by 2 hours, and explain why on my blog. I think Teddy's show was first.

Posted by: Bill Hobbs at June 1, 2005 03:22 PM

Maybe it is off by two hours. Bloglines is showing the time off by an hour though.

For example...his last post in bloglines (which I have set to Central Time) is showing up as 3:22 PM. On his blog, it shows up as 2:17 PM. Same with all of his other posts.

As a control, Bloglines shows Instapundit's last post as 1:26 PM. On his blog, as expected, it shows up as 2:26 PM (since he is in the Eastern Time Zone, and my bloglines is set to CST).

Back to Campfield's first post, it shows up in Bloglines at 8:01 AM (they seem to be showing up in bloglines a few minutes later than they were actually posted).

Then again...Bloglines may be reading the timezone wrong from Campfield's blog and translating it as being one hour behind instead of two.

I'll see if I can confirm time zone settings with Campfield.

Posted by: Blake at June 1, 2005 03:30 PM

I just want to point out that your concern over whether blogs were first to announce the arrests is just what media critics hate about traditional media. This attitude of needing to break the story first is why people don't trust the media in the first place. Besides more people probably learned about it on Teddy Bart's show because he has a much wider audience than blogs, even if they were first. Once again, it points to blogs being the media for the elite, not for the masses as you guys like to point out all the time.

Posted by: Kristin at June 1, 2005 07:03 PM

We don't want to see the media get it first...but to get it right. Blogs-1 MSM, NYT, CNN, CBS et all-0

Posted by: Drake at June 2, 2005 09:39 AM