Slashdot Mirror
The Year of the Political Blogger
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.
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.
This prescient Slashdotter predicted it all the way back in February 2007! Slashdot confirms it, Whiney Mac Fanboys can predict the future.
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.
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!
using Linux on the desktop!
Is there a "666" in there somewhere" Maybe if you add up the letters just right.... What's the significance of the missing "nLa"? Is there a Nostradamus connection?
Blogs (I still hate that word) really should have different levels somehow. Initially, blogs were just people spouting off their opinions, for the most part without having any first hand investigative knowledge or direct contact.
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 provided by a major news provider, blogs tend to be a means for someone to advance their opinion, as opposed to report the news (though they may call it reporting).
This decentralization has really deteriorated the quality of reporting as news outlets have had to slash their budgets. I really don't know how the news industry will recover, or if it will.
Lastly, who invents these stupid words anyway? I mean "the web" was cool, but it's just been downhill from there.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
In the US maybe. Political bloggers have gotten very far in other parts of the world for a while already... (Just off the top of my head
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
I'd say the majority of blogs are just repeating the talking points they pick up on from the established political parties. It gives the illusion of participation in the political process, but really its just an exercise in thought conditioning.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Or am I wrong, and is this posting not a lame excuse to get the Obama/Biden ticket on the frontpage of slashdot ? News for nerds.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
"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 opinions.
Ombama/Biden, McCain/?
The Olympics got nothing on the U.S. Presidential Campaign!
The fun is about to really begin.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
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.
John
Is anybody noticing parallels to 1960 JFK election? New kid gets insider running mate. It was a time of change too. Now I wonder how long Obama has got.
sorry fellow Slashdotters - I can't take it anymore, only the media is getting excited about this - Personally I'd much rather read about solid state disk drives or naked women than who Obama is texting today or how many geritol pills McCain had last week....
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.
Sorry, man. Somebody had to say it
What?
I didn't know Ric Romero was writing for the New York Times now?
I do wonder where he stole that line from, though.
Is Obama an idiot, or did everyone else turn him down?
Because when your message is "CHANGE!", and your weakness is inexperience, picking as your running mate a white male who's been in elected Washington office since Nixon was President AND who during the previous campaign publicly claimed - multiple times - that Obama was in no way experienced enough to be President smacks of utter desperation.
Darn! I'll never be first at anything :-(
What?
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.
Advice: on VPS providers
> I run the right wing political blog in Massachusetts
You're from too liberal a state. They only care about supporters in swing states and by the time Massachusetts goes red, they'll already have a landslide.
In other words, they only care about what they can get out of you. But hey! I bet you could get some schwag by signing up for their program that rewards you for posting blog entries & whatnot!
Of course the political parties want to accredit bloggers. Most bloggers have an agenda. A blogger who wants to go to a party convention almost certainly supports that party, so they're a good person to let in.
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 difference between "background" and "deep background"? How many even know the principles of journalistic ethics at all? Most bloggers are anonymous -- there's reportorial integrity for you.
Blogs are water-cooler conversation or street-corner-nut ranting. They aren't journalism.
I piss off bigots.
Hi, Blogs, blogs, blogs... Terminally boring and pointless... I defy anyone to sit and read any more that the introductory sentance of ANY of this type of online drivel and remain conscious! :-)
After the pet rock, I think the 'blog' deserves the title of the most pointless invention of the last 500 years!
Mike.
Wasn't there a small incident within a couple of years ago, when bloggers were given a "sort-of" pass and were essentially treated as second-class journalists (You may only come up to this line, unless you shelled out for the full press pass)?
Probably information poisoning from digg, but given how some journalists and politicians view bloggers...
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
All I can find is batshit insane ones that are so far to the Left or the Right I need a decoder ring and a specially programmed ENIGMA machine just to figure out what's being said. They make LOLCats read like Plato.
I think the problem is that people who are moderate, or simply don't suffer from the mental illness that is a political ideology, aren't driven to blog about it.
I especially love skeptic blogs. They can be so clear on science versus religion and woo woo issues, but when they turn to politics, you can almost hear their critical thinking skills and ability to reason melting and running out their ears, dissolved by the molecular acid-like effect of ideology.
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.
BORING! let's hear about the IT manager who spends her nights and weekends as a high paid escort.
Feh! Politics. It's all just insane people, debilitated by various memes, playing with their mental blocks.
I think people forget how political blogs first made their impact in the 2004 election.
It was a number of conservative blogs that got out information about the Swiftboat Vets for Truth, and these same blogs closely monitored the conservative message board site Free Republic, picked up the message suggesting that Texas Air National Guard memos were fake, did their own research, and within 24 hours effectively proved the memos were fakes. This episode doomed Senator Kerry's Presidential campaign and effectively ended the career of CBS news anchor Dan Rather.
I'll snooze in Denver either way.
widely-accepted
Never hyphenate with an adverb ending in -ly.
Now that's not a hard rule to remember, is it?
This prescient Slashdotter predicted it all the way back in February 2007!
Slashdot confirms it, Whiney Mac Fanboys can predict the future.
Panic-prone mouse! On August 28, 2008 Barack Obama was approving the nomination on the Observance Day Martin Luther King gave the "I Have A Dream" speech. Arbitrary magic formula attributed to Martin Luter King traveling scholar. Abracadabra, Hocus-pocus, and mambo jumbo Barack Obama the wish-bringer and Joe Biden the wish-giver will outwit Obama's critical past, because the skeletons Obama has will haunt and spook voters away.