Breakout Session: Local Blogging
First, it was Deanna from Alternet, and I did meet her. She is fantastic, just as suspected. And since I have a total blog-crush on her, I was really excited.
Nancy Scola started the discussion out by quoting Markos (daily kos): “I think local blogs are where it’s at.” The other panelists are Gur Tsabar of Room Eight, Liza Sabater of CultureKitchen and Daily Gothamist, Scott Sala of Urban Elephants, Juan Melli of BlueJersey.net, and Aldon Hynes of Orient-Lodge.com.
I’ve never read Room Eight, but it sounds interesting. Gur started it to “hold the political establishment accountable,” and it certainly does. “You now can point fingers, you can call out names, you can hold that person accountable,” he said. “That’s why I’m in this.”
I do read CultureKitchen, and I do adore Liza. I know it’s slightly anti-feminist to point this out, but I can’t help but say that Liza is absolutely beautiful. She’s a great speaker — she’s funny, intelligent, interesting, etc. She has that manner of speaking that makes you want to listen — and she has such a great smile that you can’t help but smile, too. And I’ll defend that observation by saying that I point it out only to destroy the stereotype that bloggers are all anti-social dorks who hide their faces behind their computer screens. She starts out her piece by laughing at the media’s paranoia about bloggers taking over and coming in to destroy their companies, and saying, “I can’t even fathom competing with the New York Times.” When she describes herself, I have to smile: “I’m a feminist runaway academic stay-at-home home-schooling mom who happens to be a prolific writer about politics, culture and many other things.” She also gives the best description of what bloggers do that I’ve heard all day: “What I do, instead of breaking stories, is I deconstruct stories. And that to me is absolutely what bloggers do. We don’t compete with major media, we deconstruct it.”
Liza got herself into the New York Times website, and blogged live. They accidentally left the door open, and so she went in and started blogging. She wrote a lengthy email about security, and how the New York Times could develop a site on a life link and not have it secured. She took a screenshot, but blurred out the URL. The Times closed her out after 36 hours and five or six blog posts, but they still haven’t acknowledged what happened, despite it being covered on CultureKitchen, Gawker, and several other blogs. Her point is basically that the Times doesn’t know what they’re doing, and “coming from a journalism background doesn’t make you a blogger. Coming from a media background doesn’t make you a blogger.”
And now we’ve got the Republican speaking. Scott Sala used to write for SlantTruth, and now is at Urban Elephants. He said about three sentences.
Juan Melli from BlueJersey is a great example of a community blogger. New Jersey is largely ignored by the media, and their information gets swallowed up by bigger neighboring markets (i.e., New York). The community blogs in New Jersey have grown out of demand.
Aldon Hynes worked for the Dean campaign, and is currently working on a Democratic campaign in Connecticut. He’s speaking about blending local blogging with national blogging — although he did just mention Daily Kos as a “good example” of bonding social capital, and you all know how we feel about Daily Kos. But he points out that far more people read sites like Xanga and Livejournal than political blogs, and asks how we reach out to those people.
Also, Ben Smith just walked in. Hot.
Scott Sala says he sees himself “sort of as a journalist, and sort of as an activist.” Aldon Hynes is rolling his eyes. Ha. Sala says that in order to maintain his journalist cred, he didn’t want to endorse anyone, he just wanted to support the GOP in New York City in general. He says he tries to maintain a journalistic mindset, while remaining hyper-partisan. Which I think is bullshit. Bloggers are not journalists.
Liza follows up and kicks ass, referring to herself as an “activist op/ed writer.” She says, “I really think you need to make a distinction between journalists and on the beat reporters and op/ed writers.” Yes, yes, yes. Liza, I love you. Having studied journalism and worked as a reporter, I do resent the idea that political bloggers are “journalists.” They aren’t. Some do investigative work, and many do a very good job — but political bloggers are essentially op/ed writers. We may attempt to present our opinions as “truth,” but they aren’t. Not that journalists present an objective truth, but there is a training process for presenting both sides of the story and at least making a good-faith attempt to disseminate information instead of pushing an opinion. That’s not what bloggers do.
Plus she just dropped Jay “Thank me for wearing pants” Rosen’s* favorite line, “Presumption of innocence in journalism.” She says, “And I love that because it really is true. There’s this presumption of innocent and objectivity in journalism, and it’s absolutely false. There’s no objectivity in writing, and to presume that you can manufacture that and that it gives you some sort of objectivity” is entirely false, and that’s why they go to blogs. They know your bias, and they can hold you accountable in a way that they can’t for newspapers.
Should I say it again? Liza is rad.
But I do think that she just identified a big difference between the way that the right views blogs, and the way that the left does, although she doesn’t point out the right/left divide (it’s evident enough in what she’s saying compared to what her tablemate, Scott Sala, is saying). The right blogosphere, in general, seems to see themselves as “citizen journalists” rebelling against what they view as a left-slanted media. They pat themselves on the back for taking down Dan Rather and “investigating” the “MSM.” The left blogosphere, on the other hand, sees themeslves as deconstructing news stories and opinion pieces, and building like-minded political communities. Some, like Kos, seem to view themselves as arms of the Democratic party, making grassroots efforts to get Democrats elected and push the party in the right direction. Others, like me, see themselves as conversation-starters and community-builders, and are more interested in discussing ideas and growing personally and intellectually than making sure that Democrats win elections. But it doesn’t seem that people in left blogosphere have delusions of journalistic grandeur the way that many on the right do. But perhaps I’m just creating this divide in my head. Thoughts?
And I stand corrected on my previous post: It turns out that Elizabeth Edwards is a blogger.
Panel discussion is over. Time to work up the courage to introduce myself to the fabulous Ms. Liza, and then meet up with Jessica. It’s blog-crush central up in here.
*Jay Rosen is a journalism professor at NYU, and advised the Washington Square News when I was the opinion editor there. A famous Jay Rosen story around our newsroom was when he came to an editorial meeting and announced, “Thank me for wearing pants,” a line he also used when being interviewed on the Daily Show. Recycling jokes. At least it was funny.