THE RISE OF BLOGS
This is from today's Pioneer Press:
##
Increasingly popular blogs give voice to 'e' the people
Minnesotans of all political stripes air their views online
What do a bank vice president, a gay black minister and a 17-year-old Mounds View high school senior have in common?
They blog about politics — advocating their political beliefs, critiquing opposing views and commenting about the day's news or each other. It seems that anyone with a computer and an opinion can start a blog.
There's the Minnesota Democrats Exposed blog, dedicated to exposing the "tactics" of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, and the Dump Bachmann blog, written by a lesbian Republican who is documenting every perceived anti-gay comment by Stillwater Sen. Michele Bachmann to provide ammunition for any moderate Republican willing to challenge her in the next primary election. And there's New Patriot, a consortium of left-leaning Minnesotans, which uses its name to debunk the notion that Democrats aren't patriotic.
"Everybody's got an opinion. Most people are most interested in their own opinion. Why not blog? It's vanity press," said David Erickson, co-publisher of mnpolitics.com.
More blogs appear to be popping up every day in Minnesota. Some have gained national notice, such as Power Line, which is credited with publicizing the holes in the "60 Minutes" report on President Bush's service in the National Guard. The site was named Time magazine's Blog of the Year.
But most blogs have a much more limited audience. And while blogging becomes increasingly popular as a source of political news and commentary, it remains to be seen what type of impact it may have on Minnesota politics.
"You don't need to call a rally. You don't need to own a newspaper. You don't need to be a big name. You need insights and views that are shared by others,'' said Larry Jacobs, political science professor at the University of Minnesota. "It's democratizing because the barriers to communication have fallen.''
Minnesotans are leaders in using the Internet to get involved in politics, said Steven Clift, who started the Minnesota E-Democracy Web site, which runs a St. Paul and Minneapolis online issues forum inviting public discourse on political issues affecting the Twin Cities.
"People have the opportunity when they want to check their opinion with others in a way that wasn't possible before,'' Clift said. "While that's empowering for many, it isn't often very civil.''
A sampling of what you can find in a blog: "Um, so is there any chance we can convince Mark Dayton not to run in 2006? Not that (Mark) Kennedy would beat him or anything, it's just that after the office-closing incident I'm convinced I can carve a stiffer spine out of a banana?"
More than 8 million people say they created a blog and the percent of Internet users reading blogs is growing, up to 27 percent in 2004, according to a Pew Internet and American Life Project survey of Internet users.
Short for Web log, a blog is a personal Web page that takes the form of an online diary, a news digest with commentary or a never-ending opinion page for average Joes with something to say without editors limiting content and length. Many blogs allow readers to post their comments as well.
Blogging is particularly popular with Republicans who feel news media has a liberal bias.
For Scott Johnson and John Hinderaker, two of the three lawyers behind Minnesota's most prominent blog, Power Line, blogging is an extension of the opinion pieces they had been writing to newspapers for years.
Since they started blogging in May 2002, the goal had always been to "contribute high-quality commentary on public policy issues," said Johnson, a vice president at TCF Bank and fellow with the conservative think tank Claremont Institute. As the blog became more popular — it averages nearly 60,000 visits a day — they were invited to cover the Republican National Convention live on their Web site.
When he started three years ago, Dennis Sanders, a northeast Minneapolis blogger behind the Moderate Republican site, said there weren't many Republicans advocating a centrist view. "I wanted to be that blog that was willing to be a 'dissident Republican' who works for reform within the party."
But don't expect to find a blog bashing Democrats or chastising Bush, with whom Sanders disagrees. "I want people to come away thinking about what I wrote instead of coming to my site to have their views reinforced," said Sanders, the gay, black minister.
Journalist Kevin Featherly approaches his blogging hobby as if he's an "unsold columnist, syndicating to the ethers.''
Eva Young of Minneapolis, author of the Dump Bachmann blog, hopes to change the minds of those opposing gay and lesbian rights by posting her opinion pieces on discussion sites where she also refers to her blogs to generate readership.
"I tend to go to lists where people don't agree with me," like Catholics for Bush, with whom she disagrees on abortion and gay-rights issues. "I go to sharpen my argument and to know what the other side is saying," Young said.
Patrick Timmons, a 17-year-old Shoreview resident, started MN Republican Watch after reading something on the Minnesota Republican site that he considered misleading. Concerned that readers would just accept what they read as fact, he felt compelled to set the record straight in a blog he started "just to show what's wrong with the Minnesota Republican Party."
While traditional reporters have to "couch what they say," bloggers "want to get their point across. It really is anything goes," Erickson said. (However, bloggers can be sued for libel if they publish something they knew to be false or acted in reckless disregard to whether it was true or false.)
One Erickson posting, which criticizes state officials' handling of the budget shortfall by removing inflation, reflects what it would be like if we could all use accounting gimmicks: "I could just call up Visa and say, 'Hey, buddy, that $1,400 I'm carrying on the plastic? Well, this is Tim Pawlenty's Minnesota pal, and I get to call it $700.' "
Randy Wanke, communications director for the Republican Party of Minnesota, said he treats blogs like other news media by sending them press releases about the party's activities and its criticism of Democrats. Blogs have, like talk radio, loyal audiences prone to act on what they hear. The party has links to right-leaning blogs on its Web site.
"It's becoming more and more part of the (political) process," Wanke said. "There's nothing wrong with preaching to the choir. The election showed us that. It's important to reach your base."
Featherly said some partisan blogs will have an impact on public discourse, but many will fail and deserve to."If you're not credible, if you're not talented … you might be able to maintain a small community of like-minded thinkers, but you're not going to have an impact."
Johnson of "Rathergate" fame said blogs' power derives from their immediate interaction with a knowledgeable audience. He said the CBS documents were deemed fake not through anything Power Line bloggers knew, but from what their readers knew. The greatest impact blogs have is not so much on politics, but on traditional journalism.
"They have had a continuing and sobering effect on the mainstream media's coverage of the political scene. They know there are knowledgeable people looking over their shoulders," Johnson said. Source: Pioneer Press, February 7, 2005
##
Increasingly popular blogs give voice to 'e' the people
Minnesotans of all political stripes air their views online
What do a bank vice president, a gay black minister and a 17-year-old Mounds View high school senior have in common?
They blog about politics — advocating their political beliefs, critiquing opposing views and commenting about the day's news or each other. It seems that anyone with a computer and an opinion can start a blog.
There's the Minnesota Democrats Exposed blog, dedicated to exposing the "tactics" of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, and the Dump Bachmann blog, written by a lesbian Republican who is documenting every perceived anti-gay comment by Stillwater Sen. Michele Bachmann to provide ammunition for any moderate Republican willing to challenge her in the next primary election. And there's New Patriot, a consortium of left-leaning Minnesotans, which uses its name to debunk the notion that Democrats aren't patriotic.
"Everybody's got an opinion. Most people are most interested in their own opinion. Why not blog? It's vanity press," said David Erickson, co-publisher of mnpolitics.com.
More blogs appear to be popping up every day in Minnesota. Some have gained national notice, such as Power Line, which is credited with publicizing the holes in the "60 Minutes" report on President Bush's service in the National Guard. The site was named Time magazine's Blog of the Year.
But most blogs have a much more limited audience. And while blogging becomes increasingly popular as a source of political news and commentary, it remains to be seen what type of impact it may have on Minnesota politics.
"You don't need to call a rally. You don't need to own a newspaper. You don't need to be a big name. You need insights and views that are shared by others,'' said Larry Jacobs, political science professor at the University of Minnesota. "It's democratizing because the barriers to communication have fallen.''
Minnesotans are leaders in using the Internet to get involved in politics, said Steven Clift, who started the Minnesota E-Democracy Web site, which runs a St. Paul and Minneapolis online issues forum inviting public discourse on political issues affecting the Twin Cities.
"People have the opportunity when they want to check their opinion with others in a way that wasn't possible before,'' Clift said. "While that's empowering for many, it isn't often very civil.''
A sampling of what you can find in a blog: "Um, so is there any chance we can convince Mark Dayton not to run in 2006? Not that (Mark) Kennedy would beat him or anything, it's just that after the office-closing incident I'm convinced I can carve a stiffer spine out of a banana?"
More than 8 million people say they created a blog and the percent of Internet users reading blogs is growing, up to 27 percent in 2004, according to a Pew Internet and American Life Project survey of Internet users.
Short for Web log, a blog is a personal Web page that takes the form of an online diary, a news digest with commentary or a never-ending opinion page for average Joes with something to say without editors limiting content and length. Many blogs allow readers to post their comments as well.
Blogging is particularly popular with Republicans who feel news media has a liberal bias.
For Scott Johnson and John Hinderaker, two of the three lawyers behind Minnesota's most prominent blog, Power Line, blogging is an extension of the opinion pieces they had been writing to newspapers for years.
Since they started blogging in May 2002, the goal had always been to "contribute high-quality commentary on public policy issues," said Johnson, a vice president at TCF Bank and fellow with the conservative think tank Claremont Institute. As the blog became more popular — it averages nearly 60,000 visits a day — they were invited to cover the Republican National Convention live on their Web site.
When he started three years ago, Dennis Sanders, a northeast Minneapolis blogger behind the Moderate Republican site, said there weren't many Republicans advocating a centrist view. "I wanted to be that blog that was willing to be a 'dissident Republican' who works for reform within the party."
But don't expect to find a blog bashing Democrats or chastising Bush, with whom Sanders disagrees. "I want people to come away thinking about what I wrote instead of coming to my site to have their views reinforced," said Sanders, the gay, black minister.
Journalist Kevin Featherly approaches his blogging hobby as if he's an "unsold columnist, syndicating to the ethers.''
Eva Young of Minneapolis, author of the Dump Bachmann blog, hopes to change the minds of those opposing gay and lesbian rights by posting her opinion pieces on discussion sites where she also refers to her blogs to generate readership.
"I tend to go to lists where people don't agree with me," like Catholics for Bush, with whom she disagrees on abortion and gay-rights issues. "I go to sharpen my argument and to know what the other side is saying," Young said.
Patrick Timmons, a 17-year-old Shoreview resident, started MN Republican Watch after reading something on the Minnesota Republican site that he considered misleading. Concerned that readers would just accept what they read as fact, he felt compelled to set the record straight in a blog he started "just to show what's wrong with the Minnesota Republican Party."
While traditional reporters have to "couch what they say," bloggers "want to get their point across. It really is anything goes," Erickson said. (However, bloggers can be sued for libel if they publish something they knew to be false or acted in reckless disregard to whether it was true or false.)
One Erickson posting, which criticizes state officials' handling of the budget shortfall by removing inflation, reflects what it would be like if we could all use accounting gimmicks: "I could just call up Visa and say, 'Hey, buddy, that $1,400 I'm carrying on the plastic? Well, this is Tim Pawlenty's Minnesota pal, and I get to call it $700.' "
Randy Wanke, communications director for the Republican Party of Minnesota, said he treats blogs like other news media by sending them press releases about the party's activities and its criticism of Democrats. Blogs have, like talk radio, loyal audiences prone to act on what they hear. The party has links to right-leaning blogs on its Web site.
"It's becoming more and more part of the (political) process," Wanke said. "There's nothing wrong with preaching to the choir. The election showed us that. It's important to reach your base."
Featherly said some partisan blogs will have an impact on public discourse, but many will fail and deserve to."If you're not credible, if you're not talented … you might be able to maintain a small community of like-minded thinkers, but you're not going to have an impact."
Johnson of "Rathergate" fame said blogs' power derives from their immediate interaction with a knowledgeable audience. He said the CBS documents were deemed fake not through anything Power Line bloggers knew, but from what their readers knew. The greatest impact blogs have is not so much on politics, but on traditional journalism.
"They have had a continuing and sobering effect on the mainstream media's coverage of the political scene. They know there are knowledgeable people looking over their shoulders," Johnson said. Source: Pioneer Press, February 7, 2005
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home