N.Y. Times talks about Convention bloggers
In today's
N.Y. Times editorial, Convention bloggers get the spotlight.
The Democrats, needless to say, are already paying for their venturesome invitation. They received applications from 50 bloggers and later announced there was room for only 30. Conspiracy theories are already abounding on the blogs of the disinvited. Such is Web life. We do wonder whether a blogger's buccaneer self-image will suffer from having to wear a garish credential necklace just to watch conventioneers as they mainly say, "Nice to see you!" to each other. Will bloggers be tamed into centrism? Or, like Mencken, will they gleefully report that the convention's main speechmakers are "plainly on furlough from some home for extinct volcanoes"? Log on to find out.
Actually, it is my understanding that 200 bloggers had initially applied. As for me, this "disinvited" blogger, conspiracy was never a suspected motive. Administrative inefficiency was more like it. To err is human. The Times erred themselves in their reporting that only 50 applications arrived to the DNCC. Do you see how things get spun and confused? Such is the life of news reporting.
As I've said more than once, I was happy to have been invited and have hoped for (although have not expected) the reinstatement of all the "disinvited" (including the Conservative among us).
Feel free to read my words
here.
While I agree that there's not anything particularly interesting about these "
Nice to see you" schmooze-fests, I had hoped to follow the Kucinich camp and perhaps interview Dennis Kucinich himself. I suspect he would have offered me more than a "
Nice to see you"...he never struck me as a "
Nice to see you" kind of fellow.
In my opinion, the blogger's niche is the ability to get the smaller stories; the slice-of-life political stories that bare the heart and soul of the people who want to represent us. Those small stories add up to a truth for which the mainstream media simply has little time in a fast-paced and competitive environment. The good blogging stories are ones which I believe the mainstream media appreciates. They give reporters some refreshing insight. In this age of 24/7 cable news networks (such as FOX news) using manipulation, theatrical music, and secretive calculation to convince a malleable public, bloggers have been instrumental in fighting propaganda with folk-insistence upon a truthful focus on current events. The very fact that these bloggers have been credentialed for the Democratic convention should make the attending bloggers proud that they have been recognized as a legitimate source of interest and of truth. Web life is not just conspiracy theory and rumor. It's also a source of a folk-reality that the mainstream just can't seem to touch anymore.
The bloggers are the neo-pamphlateers. I don't expect an invitation to the schmoozing will shove bloggers to the center, but rather expect the bloggers (in true form) to see the schmoozing for precisely what it is...and cut right through to the heart of matters.
It's good to see us in the Times editorial.
I let them know.
