Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, the guy who thinks President Obama is "sort of God" and writes articles that reveal his infatuation, wants people to think he doesn't use Twitter because they hear enough of his nonsense already. Here's what Meacham said on C-SPAN:

I'm not. I feel that if anyone wants to call me, I'm available. I don't. We have it on the Web site. And I think it's a fascinating phenomenon. But I figure that the people who know me certainly have to listen to me too much anyway, at least that's their view.

That's one theory. Here's another: Meacham knows Twitter is a powerful tool for holding journalists like him accountable when they cross the line from informer to cheerleader.

Accuracy In Media used Twitter to direct outrage toward CBS' Katie Couric earlier this year when she accepted a journalism award even as journalist John Ziegler was harassed and cuffed for trying to ask questions about why she deserved the award. And last week, both Playboy and Politico retracted stories after "tweetstorms" related to a Playboy article that fantasized about raping conservative women.

"Twitter has POWAH!!!" liberal blogger Tommy Christopher, who was fired by AOL's Politics Daily for helping expose Playboy's vile story, wrote after Politico pulled its blog post. "[T]his episode shows the power of teh Twitter to get things done. Nice job, Tweeps."

Christopher also gave Twitter users credit for pressuring Playboy to pull the article that Politico had linked. "So, yes, this is a free country," he wrote. "A country where people are free to speak, and where others are free to voice their strong disagreement. This case is a great example of both, and a showcase for Twitter as a means to amplify the voices of the aggrieved.

Top media dogs like Meacham have seen the power of Twitter and fear it. While Newsweek and other major media outlets have embraced Twitter as a new tool for broadcasting their content, their leaders by and large don't want a presence on Twitter because they don't want to be held accountable. They would much rather hide inside the Ivory Tower, where they don't have to hear the angry online mobs who are sick of liberal bias in the media.

[Cross-posted at Accuracy In Media]

Dana Perino, the last press secretary to President Bush and now the chief issues counselor for the PR firm Burson-Marteller, shared her thoughts about the evolving media market in an interview with Beet.tv. She talked about everything from how blogs are shaping the debate over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor to what companies can do online to protect their brands.

The full interview is below, and here are some sound bites:

• "What's really interesting to me on the Supreme Court nomination is to watch the blogs. They have journalists that are going through [Sotomayor's record], looking at all the different opinions that she rendered as a judge over her career. ... And sometimes the traditional media just doesn't have enough time to do it. They are trying to do more with less, and so they're looking at the blogs as well. So it almost becomes a symbiotic relationship."
• "A lot of new media is trying to fill the void where traditional media is falling short. And that's a good thing."
• "It's important that people be able to broaden out, read a lot of different things" other than information from their own political perspective.
• "A crisis that you might have dealt with over a couple of weeks now happens within a couple of hours, and so you have to have a team in place to be able to help you immediately."
• Companies "need to have some sort of [video] freelancers on speed dial" to react to online viral videos (like the infamous Domino's pizza clip) that could undermine their brands.

[Cross-posted at Accuracy In Media]

My stint this year as the executive producer of Eyeblast.tv confirmed what I suspected before I began the job -- that conservatives are way behind the online video curve. But I was also pleasantly surprised to see some top-notch video work by conservatives, both amateur and professional.

Here are my picks for the Top 10 Conservative Videos of 2008 and why I chose them:

10) I Am Sarah Palin: Top female, conservative bloggers took a stand for Sarah Palin amid sexist media coverage of the Republican vice-presidential candidate. The video showcased the right's online superstars and their creativity.

9) Children Sing Hymns To Obama: California parents who supported Obama gathered their children in a home to sing praises to "The One." Negative publicity about the incident, including video parodies like this one, prompted the user to yank the video from YouTube. Other worshipful videos suffered the same fate later in the campaign.

8) Just Tell Us The Truth: This four-minute compilation of clips drew a clear distinction between the views about life expressed by Barack Obama, John McCain and Sarah Palin. It was one of several compelling videos about abortion, a topic largely ignored by the media during the presidential race.

7) Hillary Clinton's Bosnia Lie: When Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton "misspoke" about being under sniper fire while in Bosnia as first lady, the press accepted it at face value. But Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center smelled a lie and found the CBS clip that exposed it. He showed conservatives how to do the investigative work that liberal journalists won't. Clinton's lie became a major story in the Democratic primary because of the clip, which also inspired a much-watched parody.

6) Obama's Passion For Spreading The Wealth: A anonymous producer known to the online world as Naked Emperor News unearthed multiple audio and video clips that revealed the radical views of Obama, including this one about redistributing wealth. Like the Bosnia video, Naked Emperor News' grassroots opposition research provided the kind of scrutiny Obama should have faced from the mainstream media and proved that conservatives can be the media. If you can't beat 'em, bypass 'em.

5) Exposing Planned Parenthood (Episode 1, Episode 2): These are the first of two videos in the "Mona Lisa Project" being produced by Live Action Films. The investigative videos expose the illegal and unethical practices of Planned Parenthood counselors. Students for Life of America has produced similar videos. All of them are noteworthy not only for what they reveal but because YouTube has banned several of them as "inappropriate content."

4) Not Wallet: In a video titled "Not Alex," the liberal extremists at MoveOn.org manipulatively used a baby and distorted McCain's words to criticize his views on the Iraq war. A conservative blogger answered with this "Not Wallet" parody, which effectively used the same 30-second ad format and theme of MoveOn's ad to turn the discussion toward Barack Obama's pro-tax economic views.

3) Burning Down The House: When conservatives create videos that strike a chord with the public, they often become the target for copyright-infringement "takedown notices" at YouTube. That's what happened to this video about the financial crisis and what caused it. The mash-up showed people that liberals are really to blame for the current housing crisis. David All of techRepublican landed an exclusive interview with the video's creator after the copyright controversy.

2) Joe The Plumber's American Dream: Conservatives may not be great at creating original content, but they know a good clip when they see one and work relentlessly to make people notice. American voters definitely noticed Joe (The Plumber) Wurzelbacher. This is the clip that started the Joe the Plumber phenomenon and helped expose Obama for the spread-the-wealth radical he is. McCain arguably would have been defeated more soundly by Obama had this video not become a centerpiece of discussion late in the campaign.

1) Dear Mr. Obama: The power in this video comes from the personal experience of the veteran who made it. He practiced the message of sacrifice that Obama preached. The video earned 13 million views on YouTube, was mentioned as the top Obama-related video by a liberal publication, The Nation, and finished second to "Yes We Can" among election-related videos.

Cross-posted at The Enlightened Redneck

Here's a tip to all you fans of videos that feature young people singing and chanting praises to Barack Obama: Download them to your computer before they go viral because the videos will disappear as soon as the inevitable wave of ridicule in the blogosphere hits a fever pitch.

Two cases of such viral embarrassment have happened in less than a week.

The first episode occurred soon after The Drudge Report linked to a video called "Sing For Change," which featured elementary-aged children singing about hope, change and all things Obama. The video was broadly condemned. Even the nonpartisan blog PrezVid criticized the "creepy California parents" who made their kids sing words they couldn't possibly understand in political context.

Apparently stung by the criticism, the creator of the video, Obama supporter Kathy Sawada, made it "private" on YouTube. When YouTube users began attacking her in the comments, she deleted most of the comments but made the clip public again. That didn't last long, though. Now it's private again. (I downloaded the original and posted excerpts at Eyeblast.tv just in case.)

A few days later, another video called "Obama Youth" went viral. It features young black men from the Urban Community Leadership Academy in Kansas City, Mo., marching as they chant "Alpha, Omega," a phrase with messianic meaning. The youngsters also rotely recite Obama's "Yes We Can" motto and presidential plans, and they give him premature credit for who they hope to become.

That video began to spread online last week and hit its viral stride over the weekend. Today, the YouTube user who uploaded the video, presumably an Obama critic based on the video description, pulled it without explanation. (I have a copy of that one, too.)

The good news is that once someone pushes the publish button online, it's impossible to put the video genie back in the offline bottle. You can still watch complete versions of both "Sing For Change" and "Obama Youth" on YouTube, and "Sing For Change" already is the subject of parody after parody.

Obama's online October surprise will continue from now until Election Day and beyond.