Hugh Hewitt - New Media

New Media

Hewitt is a longtime promoter of what he and other conservative pundits call the new media – talk radio and blogs – as a means to balance liberal bias in the mainstream media. Hewitt was described as one of the five "best-read national conservative bloggers" in a 2007 memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

In early 2006, in an article for The Weekly Standard titled "The Media's Ancien Régime," Hewitt outlined his belief that traditional journalism was supplanted by the ease of information exchange on the Internet.

There is too much expertise, all of it almost instantly available now, for the traditional idea of journalism to last much longer. In the past, almost every bit of information was difficult and expensive to acquire and was therefore mediated by journalists whom readers and viewers were usually in no position to second-guess. Authority has drained from journalism for a reason. Too many of its practitioners have been easily exposed as poseurs.

A recurring theme on Hewitt's show is accusing the mainstream media of liberal bias and lack of transparency, and the unwillingness of reporters to answer questions about their own political beliefs. Hewitt has said that the modern paradigm of reportage, whereby journalists make a claim to objectivity while never answering questions about their own beliefs, allows a deep-seated culture of liberal media bias to be perpetuated. He is fond of saying that financial reporters are never allowed to write about companies in which they have an interest, while political reporters routinely refuse to answer questions that might reveal their own political positions and thus allow the reader to adjust for any bias, whether conscious or subconscious, that their reporting might contain. He credits the right-wing blogosphere with destroying the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry in 2004.

Hewitt frequently invites members of the mainstream media to his show and quizzes them about their political beliefs and why they think those beliefs should remain a secret. Eric Black of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Helen Thomas of the White House Press Corps and Mark Halperin of ABC News, among others, have appeared on Hewitt's show and debated whether they should be obliged to disclose their political beliefs. During a 2006 exchange with Hewitt, longtime Washington Post reporter and columnist Thomas Edsall said that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 15-25 to 1 among members of the mainstream media.

After Hewitt wrote the book A Mormon in the White House?, Robert Stacy McCain of The Washington Times wrote that "Hewitt finds himself under suspicion of being a cheerleader for the Romney campaign." Hewitt donated $2,300 to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign in 2008, as well as many other Republican candidates over the years, including U.S. Senator Norm Coleman and President George W. Bush. In the leadup to the February 5, 2008, Republican primaries, Hewitt became known for the slogan "A vote for Huckabee is a vote for McCain."