It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke: “Two senators, a college dean and a Libertarian talk show host walk into the University Chapel…”

But Monday afternoon’s panel event at the chapel was a serious discussion on new media’s influence on American politics — with a few jokes.

The discussion panelists had one central question on the table: Is more information from more sources good for democracy today — or not?

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) moderates a panel on the effects of new media in politics. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), radio host Neal Boortz and Dean Cully Clark joined the discussion. PHOTO BY JENNA WALKER

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), talk radio host Neal Boortz and Cully Clark, dean of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, discussed the effects YouTube, social media, instant Web updates and vicious blogs have had on the political sphere over the last decade.

“This is just the sort of topic that a great University ought to be addressing,” said University President Michael Adams, who introduced the panel. “And perhaps the most important question in this day when photos can be altered, when blogs of any type can spew forth information with either a great or lesser level of accuracy — Who can we trust?”

Chambliss, acting as moderator of the discussion, asked his fellow panelists about the importance of verification of sources in journalism today.

“It’s the threshold of what we must do,” Clark said. “Get our stories multi-sourced so we have confidence in them. In the welter of information with which we are bombarded, there are many ways of monitoring it. It’s the ever-present question: How do you know with some confidence that when you pass something on to the public that it adds value to the discussion?”

Nelson and Chambliss said political campaigning in the Internet age can be difficult when even the slightest slip-up can be tweeted, re-tweeted and circulated around the country within a few seconds.

“You just leave a word out and all of a sudden it becomes an issue,” Boortz said. “Before Twitter and all this instantaneousness that never would have happened.”

Clark said a world dominated by new media leaves no remark free from censure. One hiccup in a teleprompter speech can become the sound byte heard around the world the next morning.

Cully Clark, the dean of Grady College, was one of the speakers at Monday’s panel discussion of new media’s effect on American politics. PHOTO BY JENNA WALKER

“There is no space that isn’t subject to digital representation somewhere else,” he said. “Yet we communicate with anonymity. We may overdo this feeling that we are alone. We are never more vulnerable than when we create a digital space.”

Nelson and Chambliss have both sought to combat new media’s potentially negative effects through their embrace of its positive influence on constituents.

“We do a weekly YouTube now,” Chambliss said. “And the response to that has been phenomenal. I never would have guessed that when my staff first brought it up.”

Nelson also posts YouTube conferences for his constituents with some frequency.

“It makes a considerable impact on what we do because we want to get our message out there,” he said. “Truth travels at the speed of sound. You have to get your message out yourself.”

Though all panelists expressed some distrust of new media, all also emphasized the benefits gleaned from new media, such as enhanced voter participation.

“This is one of the ways new media helps,” Boortz said. “It gets people talking about politics who otherwise wouldn’t be interested at all.”

All panelists agreed that there is no changing new media — they are the ones who have to adjust to its ever-expanding influence.

“It is how you use the various media to elevate your issue,” Clark said. “In the end, organization is everything in politics. It’s not so much managing a particular medium as it is utilizing all of them. Let’s try in our discourse to approximate something that is honest discourse.”