Blogging the Conventions

There are times I think it'd be fun to blog at the conventions. Oh, not so much in the conventions themselves; I think blogging from the mob of fleabitten moonbat protesters outside Madison Square Garden would be a lot more interesting than covering the foregone conclusion inside.

And that way, I could avoid the big controversy in the building; the burning question, "are bloggers journalists?"

Joe Gandelman has an interesting story on the subject.

I always tell people about when, a few years after I left journalism school, I was in Spain writing for the Chicago Daily News, the Christian Science Monitor and other publications. A major news magazine hired me to help them out on legwork and sidebars on the last few months of the Franco regime. By then I had written for some two years in India and five months in Spain. One of the magazine's big correspondents looked at me and said: "That's a good story you wrote. But you can't cover this if you haven't covered City Hall."

I almost said "What do you mean I can't cover this? I AM COVERING IT NOW.." (Today I would say it). But he was resentful that I hadn't gone through "the system" yet. That's what Jones is basically suggesting about bloggers at conventions:

Bloggers will be covering the conventions WITHOUT jumping through the hoops. Without the editors (for better or for worse). Without being under the corporate pecking order which may entail advancing through layers of political gamesmanship. Without having gone through the organizational advancement required to be given a prominent forum to comment on big issues. And with freedom -- and an instant audience not provided for by a big corporation.

So there's lots of RESENTMENT on the part of some because bloggers (perceived as nobodies without journalistic status) are doing it, not through the normal channels...and they will HAVE AN AUDIENCE.

Read the whole thing, naturally.

Posted by Mitch at July 21, 2004 06:58 AM | TrackBack