Rupert Murdoch and Phil Bronstein, Corrections and Thoughts In Quick

At some point, the real time and date I will not disclose, I’m going to subject San Francisco Chronicle Executive Vice President and Editor-At-Large Phil Bronstein to one of my video interviews.

This one a follow-up to my blog post on what I thought was his take on Rupert Murdoch and the New Of The World Scandal (NOTW).

Well, Phil wasn’t defending Old Media, so my entire post went off on a direction that, had I consumed it three times, would have been different. So, I got after him, really in the spirit of exchange, and a good old paper fight, if you will. Me, the lover of video-blogging, travel, power, politics, and quasi-defender of what I call “the new establishment”, and Phil Bronstein, the legendary muckraking celebrity journalist.

This was Phil’s emailed response:

First of all, I never saw your invite to talk about this; you know I’m always happy to talk with you about this stuff. So sorry if I somehow missed it.

Second, the “I remember..” nostalgia about newsrooms came from the CNN host. My own fond memory line was about a bookie in the backshop, which didn’t suggest journalistic nostalgia or technohobia. Even that was more just having fun with the melodramatic CNN headline about a “criminal operation in the newsroom!”

It was just an aside that came from that same love of insurgency you mention. It had nothing to do with analog vs. digital, or anything else of consequence.

OK. Cool.

What’s interesting is Phil’s latest blog in The Huffington Post. One that makes him look like the kind of private eye that one should fear.

Or embrace.

The point of it is that journalists have a number of ways to get the information they need, but really, how valuable is it to read through someone’s garbage when the end result is a few more ticks of newspaper sales?

Can’t wait to talk to Phil.

Stay tuned.

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