Peter Schorsch
Once upon a time, appearing at the Capital Tiger Bay Club meant you were going to get skewered. With leaders like Lee Hinkle and Scott Dailey ready — and more than able — to toy with you the way a cat plays with a half-dead mouse, entering into the Tiger’s Den was not for the faint of heart.
In full disclosure, I have not attended a Capital Tiger Bay event in years, but I am told this is a kinder, gentler group … lighter, still funny, but as irreverent as ever.
And so on March 4 — that’s this Friday — I enter the Tiger’s Den as the keynote speaker. I am not afraid.
But I am grateful — very grateful, thank you guys! — and I am also a little intrigued.
I am intrigued because they referred to me as a “mogul.”
Perhaps in years past when it was the Tiger’s Den, “mogul” might have meant something to do with skiers and ski slopes and how they were gonna turn me into a bump on the slope. I don’t get that sense this time … I think they mean somebody who has gravitas in the world of Florida politics.
Their word. Not mine.
Can it be that a mere blogger is seen as a “mogul”? Back when Lee and Scott (rest his wonderful soul) were at the head table, the only media moguls in town ran the state’s largest newspapers and television stations.
My how times have changed.
So what does a so-called “mogul” talk about?
Let’s face it. In this business it would be really hard, a few days after the SEC primary, to NOT talk about the real mogul, Donald Trump. Further, it would be fun, as someone in my business who lives or dies by traffic to my mogul-y websites to explore the odd symbiotic-parasitic relationship between the man (Trump) who has the ability to drive up ratings even while they (the media) bemoan his very existence.
So I can talk about that.
I can speak about the ever-changing landscape of media, media coverage, newspapers, politics, and the evolution of this thing called the “Capitol Press Corps.”
But there is a truth here.
In our business. At these times. Things change quickly. Very quickly.
So that likely means, while I will have my notes and analysis and some pretty cool statistics (maybe even a few showing how mogul-y blogging can be) something will have happened that requires, nay DEMANDS, I shift gears and address whatever it is that happened that week, that day, or even that morning.
Because that’s the world we live in. Whether you like it or not, ideas, concepts, conversations and most importantly, breaking news stories all move at light speed.
Maybe that’s why the Capital Tiger Bay Club thinks a “mogul” is someone who runs an online news source that moves at the speed of light.
