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The Year of the Political Blogger
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Aug 23, 2008 01:24 PM
from the on-the-desktop?-wait,-no dept.
from the on-the-desktop?-wait,-no dept.
The New York Times is running a story about how political blogging has arrived as a widely-accepted form of reporting during this election year. In addition to the nationwide TV and radio audiences, the candidates are making efforts to get their message onto the increasingly popular blog network. In doing so, they've elevated bloggers to the level of traditional media reporters at the national conventions.
"The major political parties first gave credentials to bloggers in 2004. The Republicans allowed a dozen bloggers to attend their convention in New York, while the Democrats gave bloggers 35 seats in the nosebleed section of the Fleet Center in Boston. This year, the R.N.C. gave credentials to 200 bloggers as a means to 'get Senator McCain's message out to more people,' said Joanna Burgos, the press secretary of the convention. For bloggers attending the Democratic convention at the Pepsi Center in Denver, two types of credentials are offered. The first is a national credential, which offers the same access granted to members of traditional news media organizations. The second, more coveted credential is the state blogger credential. It allows one blogger per state to cover the convention alongside its state delegation, with unlimited floor access."
Of course, political blogs are abuzz today with the news of Obama's selection of Senator Joe Biden as a running mate.
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Riiiiight (Score:4, Insightful)
For Ms. Spaulding, 45, who works full time as an IT manager at Duke University Press in Durham, N.C., blogging is her passion, an unpaid hobby she pursues at nights and on weekends.
Riiiiight, nights and weekends. Never on the job.
Re:Riiiiight (Score:5, Informative)
You always have to remember there are many jobs where professionals are paid to fulfil the role not punch a time clock. Their success in the job is not measured by attendance, or the number of work related key presses per hour but by the role being fulfilled. Very good admins end up spending very little time administering the network because it runs properly, poor admins run poorly configured and maintained systems, hence they are continually busy trying to keep it running and fixing one disaster after another.
The bloggers role in modern political reporting is a very sad indictment of the corrupt state of mass media news reporting or as is closer to reality the fabrication of the news. Examples like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVNblG9PJMk [youtube.com] which are used manipulate the political discourse are the reason that bloggers are coming to the fire as more independent sources of information or why major mass media news outlets are being viewed as just another blog.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The bloggers role in modern political reporting is ...
I'd be genuinely impressed if bloggers of any sort were able to do anything more than, infrequent or isolated examples notwithstanding, offer commentary derived from traditional media coverage, or the contents of other blogs. That's a roundabout way of saying that bloggers don't do reporting. In fact, given cut backs or elimination of network news departments in recent years, I'd say the only folks doing real reporting are those working for newspapers.
Joe Biden's candidacy for VP predicted by Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
That's funny. Even more funny are the several comments that follow telling why Biden would be an idiotic choice for VP. I wonder if those same people suddenly changed their minds today? Gotta show your solidarity!
The GOP blew it in my case. (Score:5, Interesting)
I run the right wing political blog in Massachusetts and did not get credentials from the RNC. It is a community blog and so perhaps the RNC didn't like that a portion of the community doesn't like John McCain. But I filled out the form to be credentialed. All the RNC did was put me on their crummy email list so I get convention related spam.
A good development (Score:2, Interesting)
This will let the people who write about this stuff actually ATTEND the meetings they are giving their opinions about.
But I'd still say the overall trend of blogging is a negative one for journalism and disseminating quality information. At least from my experience, unless
Re:A good development (Score:5, Insightful)
At least from my experience, unless provided by a major news provider, blogs tend to be a means for someone to advance their opinion,
And this differs from the other media in what way, exactly?
We had a brief period in history where journalists pretended to be objective. Before the mid 20th century, they were very upfront about their political motives, and I hope that we can drop the pretense altogether in the near future.
-jcr
Parent
Re:A good development (Score:5, Insightful)
I would prefer to see the future not look like Fox news.
Parent
Re:A good development (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with you that the media (with the obvious exception of Fox News) tries to be unbiased in its reporting, and I applaud them for doing so. But sometimes their attempts to be balanced actually causes their story to be unbalanced. For example, does every story about teaching creationism or "intelligent design" in school really need to have quotes by the Discovery Institute or some other creationist? Why even give them any publicity or credibility?
In my opinion, one of the reasons why The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report are so popular is their ability to make fun of a story, often at the expense of impartiality. The Georgia-Russia conflict led the media to bring up the "3 AM phone call" ad with respect to a certain candidate's qualifications; Stewart, on the other hand, showed the clips of the media to point out how ridiculous the argument is.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yet, wouldn't it happen that you point out Fox news because you disagree with their take on the issues?
I'm looking for a conservative to complain about Fox News, and a liberal to complain about Micheal Moore. Until there are, in fact, many of these kinds of people, I'll always be skeptical about the advocacy for objectivity.
Re:A good development (Score:5, Insightful)
For a great way to dispense news, see The News Hour with Jim Lehrer or CSPAN.
Network news is so-so at best - they use way too many superlatives for my taste. How can this be "the worst economy" or "the most difficult time for working families"? It's not quite as bad as Fox news announcing "another liberal agenda", but it's still annoying.
Parent
Re:A good development (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm looking for a conservative to complain about Fox News, and a liberal to complain about Micheal Moore.
I'm a hard-line Libertarian, and I'll complain about them both. Not for their bias, but for their pretense at objectivity.
-jcr
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I vehemently disagree.
Tell it to Dan Rather.
-jcr
Year of the political blogger? (Score:2)
Its not a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
rj
Change of name, same game... (Score:2, Insightful)
"blogs" are little more than a genuine free application of the press. They aren't (typically) paid for what they write, yet they get "published" anyway, and the better the reporting, the more readership. Because of the open nature, you don't have to wait a couple days for your rebuttal comment (aka letter to the editor) to show up. There will always be "professional" journalists, but I suspect that at some point along the line, blogs will force those people to adapt, and acknowledge their biases and opin
Romero? (Score:2)
Irrelevant (Score:3, Interesting)
That's nice, but blogs are irrelevant to the election. Completely.
If you don't believe me, just ask yourself - when was the last time you changed your opinion or plans on who'd you vote for based upon something you read in a blog?
Blogs are just poor man's talk radio. People who listen to Air America are closed-minded liberals, just as people who listen to Michael Savage or Rush Limbaugh are closed-minded conservatives. They tune in to have their views reinforced, not to challenge their thinking. Same thing for blogs.
Influence presidential politics? Forget it. I'd wager less than 1% of Americans even read blogs, much less political blogs, and they tend to be the digerati, concentrated in blue states where the state's electoral votes are already pretty obviously going one way...
Hey, nothing wrong with 'em, of course - talk all you want! But if you want to influence politics (local or national), the best way is to first become a multimillionaire and then start giving money. Sorry, I misspoke - it's the only way.
Good PR, bad journalism. (Score:2, Insightful)
Trouble is, bloggers aren't journalists, and real journalists do themselves a disservice by having anything to do with them. When was the last time you heard of a blogger getting independent corroboration of a story before running it? How many would go to jail to protect a source? How many know the d
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I think they stopped teaching and believing that stuff in the late 70's, early 80's. Walter Cronkite was the last of the old school network journalists.
The new breed journalists care much more about how well their hair and makeup look on tv and how much salary and air time they can soak up, while reading Edutainment and Factoids off a teleprompter
Re: (Score:2)
I think you're confusing political news for political opinion. This is an opinion piece about Political Bloggers in general (and in specific, about the most recent event to occur among them, that being Obama's selection of Biden.) Also, it's relevant to the conventions (and again, the selection of potential Veeps such as Biden).
Don't read too much into it. Obama/Biden was going to make the front page today SOMEHOW.
Re: (Score:2)
don't you just hate that word? it sounds like someone throwing up "blooooooog!"
Actually, I just hate the politics. They make me make that sound.
Don't even suggest that! (Score:2)
If you thought the Republicans after turning Bush into a savior were scary, imagine the Democrats after turning Obama into a martyr...
For a healthy country, we need a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Yes, we need to correct for a lot of the Republicans' damage over the past eight years, but overcompensation will hurt just as much.