Bloggers In The Statehouse? Why Not?
Posted by David on Oct 26th, 2007
2007
Oct 26
Jill at Writes Like She Talks has brought up an excellent point today: why aren’t bloggers allowed in the statehouse? Consider it for a second. There are a lot of good bloggers out there, in fact blogs have already become my primary source of information when it comes to the state government. My local newspaper (of course today would be the exception), in contrast, rarely discusses anything about Ohio legislative branch during a typical week.
Here’s a few more points I’d like to make in support of this idea. I’m not trying to start an entire blogging vs. MSM debate, just pointing out a few advantages that the format has.
- Blogs often focus on one topic while traditional media has to devote equal attention to several different topics. Because of this a political blogger is more likely to cover political news than a typical news outlet. This is especially true in rural areas covered by smaller news outlets.
- Blog news is “fresher” than other, offline news sources. Give a blogger a power outlet and a Wi-Fi connection and they’ll have news online within minutes. Other sources must wait to be published or broadcast.
- Blogging combines the best of all forms of media. You can’t send audio out through the newspaper or send on demand text through the television. A blogger can go back and forth between media types by uploading MP3’s or posting videos to YouTube.
I’m sure I could go on but for right now let’s just leave it at that.
October 27th, 2007 at 11:57 am
David - thanks so much - what a lovely blog too - I like this theme!!
I appreciate the support. Let’s just see where we can go with this. The goal is on behalf of news consumers and Ohioans. This isn’t really even about bloggers and MSM folks - the points you identify indicate that, don’t you think?
I’ve added you to the WLST sidebar blogroll but also, you should send it in to the PD - go to the cleveland.com page and look for their blogrolls - I think there’s a list on the left hand side that lets you get there? Shouldn’t be a problem and people do seem to use it.
Thanks again.
October 27th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Thanks, it’s actually a self-made (by made I mean swapping out code and files from one using stuff from the other) combination of two variations of the “Zen” theme. The picture in the header was actually taken for my positive post about Ohio for Bill Sloat’s challenge.
I agree that it isn’t about bloggers vs. MSM. Television, radio, and print journalism all have their pros and cons just as blogging does. I just think the blogging format should be given the chance to compete on a level playing field with the rest of them.
I’m going to hold off on submitting OVP to any syndication services (except maybe BNN since Lisa’s running the Ohio part) for a little while until I’m sure this site won’t self-destruct. When the time rolls around though, I’ll be sure to take a look into the PD page.
October 28th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Well, nice job.
I’m on Dreamhost too and all I can tell you about outages is that I don’t want to say much, or I might jinx it but I’ve had a few and was eventually told by a friend, “Ooo? Dreamhost? I wish you’d told me first.”
Not good, huh?
October 28th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Honestly I’d heard some complaints about DreamHost but they won me over with the green hosting. Of course the price didn’t hurt much either…
On the other hand, they aren’t making much of a first impression (except for Roberto, the support guy).
October 28th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
In theory, journalists from newspapers and television and radio offer some degree of objective review. By having an organization to back them up, there is some degree of control. If a journalists gets out of hand, his company can be “scolded” and kept in line. An individual blogger doesn’t have this accountability.
In practice, this doesn’t work. Stations like CNN, ABC and CBS (those especially) tend to lean way to the left. That’s why Rush Limbaugh uses the line “I AM equal time”.
CSPAN was supposed to give us a lot of unbalanced view of what goes on in Congress. Unfortunately, Congress is smarter than CSPAN, they’ve found ways to abuse that.
There has to be a way to get untreated information on the government. I have yet to see a blogger that gave that.
October 28th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Yes, but there are bloggers on either side. As long as both sides get equal access it should work out.
As for blogger accountability it’s simple: you screw up too much you lose your access.
I’m not saying that they should just throw open the doors to everyone, they came come up with some sort of vetting process. They just need to stop denying all bloggers access without any kind of consideration at all.