Carter and I did a panel Sunday before a group of Southern journalists who are navigating their way through the brave new world of blogs and the Internet – and the impact on politics.

One UNC professor asked this question:

“Does the ‘new media’ make politics more negative and more superficial?”

He cited the blog- and You Tube-driven brouhaha over ex-Senator George Allen’s “macaca” remark as evidence of superficiality.

I disagree.

Politics is negative by nature. It’s a struggle for power. That’s never pretty. But at least our elections, unlike Mexico’s, aren’t violent. Yet.

Superficial? Quite the opposite. I think the “macaca” video enabled us to see George Allen’s soul, as George Bush might say.

What we saw was a mean old man making fun of a dark-skinned young man and welcoming him to “the real America.”

I think that’s just as revealing as a long policy analysis.

A footnote: This was the Southern Journalists Roundtable in Chapel Hill, organized by Ferrel Guillory of UNC’s School of Journalism and Program on Public Life.

More than two dozen reporters and editors were there from newspapers (and one radio station, WUNC) in North and South Carolina, George, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Kentucky.

They were genuinely struggling with how to better serve their readers in a fast-changing world.

I think we’re lucky to have them.

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