A media blitz these days touches many more bases than the major networks and leading daily newspapers. Witness our former Governor, who wrapped up his first week of Total Recall autobiography chest-thumping with a 2:30 p.m PT Google hangout chat hosted by What’s Trending maven Shira Lazar.

The global audience made possible by this technology was plainly obvious. Commenters awaiting the event’s start were chiming in from Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Macedonia and points beyond.

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Last week, 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl visited Claremont Graduate University and spoke for more than an hour about the shifting sands of 21st century journalism.

Thanks to the polarization of the American media and public discourse, she noted that the middle ground of public debate has slipped away. Per a report in student newspaper The Clarion, she also acknowledged that her medium is no longer king of the political message delivery system:

“Twitter is more important than television,” Stahl said. She felt that politicians can now argue from a new platform that changes the United States from being a representative democracy, to a direct democracy when they “tweet” issues and gain large numbers of followers of their own ideas and issues.

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Following Tom Brokaw‘s Monday night “Newsmakers” series speech at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, event producer producer Steve Lesher blogged some interesting observations.

He deemed Brokaw one of the best speakers to have graced the event, right up there with Colin Powell, Ken Burns, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. He also noted that Brokaw, during a dinner held immediately beforehand, suggested that Ronald Reagan‘s terms as California Governor dealing with Jessie Unruh and the Legislature prepared him better than most for the challenges of the U.S. Congress. Writes Lesher:

It is interesting to me that in their visits to “Newsmakers,” Brokaw, Bob Schieffer, Lesley Stahl and Powell all had anecdotes about Reagan that were central to their talks. One can recall when it was downright hip to criticize the Gipper as being unintelligent, superficial and the like.

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We made it to the Grove last night (where we bumped into L.A. Observed’s Kevin Roderick — small world) to hear Madeleine Albright speak about her book, Memo To the President: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership.

While she described the book-as-memo conceit “a gimmick,” she made some very salient points about what the next president is going to have to do and how best to do it. She spoke eloquently for about 40 minutes, interweaving her own experiences, random pieces of history (a woman reporter once got an interview with President John Quincy Adams by sitting on his clothes at the bank of the Potomac where he liked to skinny dip) and even-handed assessments of where this country is headed.

If only the people who were called on to ask questions were as bright and well-spoken as she. Among the first, was a guy who brought up that Lesley Stahl interview from 150 years ago.

“Not only have I apologized for that, I’ve called it the single stupidest thing I have ever said in my life,” Albright told the audience member, we imagine adding in her head, but thanks for bringing that up.