PressEthic

At the same time Senior Brian Stelter juggles papers and projects for his Mass Communication classes, he takes phone calls from media executives at NBC, CNN and the like, while blogging about it at TVNewser. Barely able to drink, the Towson University student created a maelstrom from a blog packed with insider information on the television news industry.

In a profile by Julie Bosman in The Times, Stelter’s site is taken very serious by people in the industry.

Mr. Stelter’s blog (tvnewser.com), a seven-day-a-week, almost 24-hour-a-day newsfeed of gossip, anonymous tips, newspaper article links and program ratings, has become a virtual bulletin board for the industry.

It is read religiously by network presidents, media executives, producers and publicists, not for any stinging commentary from Mr. Stelter, whose style is usually described as earnest, but because it provides a quick snapshot of the industry on any given day. Habitués include Mr. Williams and Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN’s domestic operations, who long ago offered up his cellphone number to Mr. Stelter.

Stelter’s newfound fame has him rubbing shoulders with NBC’s Brian Williams at the White House Press Correspondents’ Dinner. But it is a great deal of work as well, as he is blogging seven-days-week to provide insider coverage of the world of televsion media.

Or it is a gossip column with a dash of The Drudge Report's sophomoric sensibilities, depending who you ask. A visit to his site this morning was met with interesting speculation of anchor envy at CNN:

Am I sensing some bad blood between Anderson Cooper and Lou Dobbs? In a speech at SMU last week, Cooper said:

"I'm not like most anchors... I don't like to hear myself speak, unlike most, like Lou Dobbs."

Anderson, if you're going to take a pot shot at a cable newser, there are plenty to choose from -- why target talent from your own network? And here's another important question:

Who would win in a cage match?

__ Anderson Cooper

__ Lou Dobbs

Bosman reported that his blog was picked up in July 2004 by Mediabistro.com, paying him for his work and covering his school costs. A measurement of the influence Stelter wields, Bosman wrote that site had "821,000 page views in October 2006, up from 150,000 in July 2004. In September, thanks to Ms. Couric’s premiere at CBS, TVNewser had record traffic of 1.2 million page views."

Stelter's legitimacy comes in breaking stories. "Mr. Stelter has earned the grudging trust of many of his readers, who e-mail him hundreds of tips a day that often translate into scoops, like the early warning that Peter Jennings, the former ABC News anchor, was near death or, more recently, the discovery of a Photoshopped publicity shot of Katie Couric, the 'CBS Evening News' anchor, that made her appear a dress size or two smaller," wrote Bosman.

Even with coups such as the Jennings story or Couric's doctored dress, Stelter isn't recognized by The Television Critics Association, wrote Bosman. This attributed not to his lack of power, rather it is the association's problem with bloggers. Nonetheless, Stelter's work is emblematic of the rapidily changing landscape of media and the emerging power of bloggers.