Los Angeles Times Blog Editor
Because news about George W. Bush has largely been eclipsed by the political race to succeed him, focusing a new blog on an unpopular second-term administration might seem an odd decision. But Tony Pierce sees Bush as a sort of red cape waving in front of the bulls of the blogosphere.
In Pierce's mind, the liberal agenda-setters among the online commentariat blame the establishment media for insufficient scrutiny of the Bush administration, particularly before the Iraq war. Most of those bloggers "are sitting on their couches," he thought to himself, and they've gained quite a following. Why not unleash the newspaper's White House reporters to churn out additional coverage for the Web, with the benefit of credentialed access to the president and the advantage of real news-gathering?
Pierce -- who volunteered in mid-sentence that he's a "hard-core independent" -- said his understanding of presidential history has been that "most lame-duck presidents go on cruise control," making their final months less than newsy. But Bush has been an exception, Pierce suggested, by driving the administration's agenda to the end, including "legalizing torture and bailing out AT&T.... I thought, Great! This is exactly what we should be covering more in-depth than what we have in the paper on A-1."
Pierce entered the journalism world after selling Microsoft products early in his career and then blogging at LAist. The Times hired him to help invent new online formats for the newspaper's Web site; the paper now has 43 separate blogs. Countdown To Crawford is the sixth most popular at the Times, Pierce said, as measured by page views.
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