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September 18, 2005BELTWAY BLOGROLL
Bloggers Going Places
Testifying before the Federal Election Commission and Congress, and blogging at sites like Confirm Them, Personal Democracy Forum and RedState apparently is not enough to keep Mike Krempasky busy. He has taken a blog-related job at the Edelman public-relations firm.
Krempasky's first client, according to a post last week at RedState, is Wal-Mart. "I can't tell you what an experience it's been over the past two weeks -- watching this corporate giant lead the way in response to Hurricane Katrina and helping to tell that story," he wrote.
In an e-mail announcing the job last month, Krempasky described his new job like this: "I'll be joining Edelman as a vice president, working on corporate public affairs with a bit of an Internet twist. It's bound to be a tremendous challenge, but it's an exciting opportunity I couldn't pass up."
His work for Wal-Mart already has prompted reaction from other bloggers.
Krempasky's move is one of a few noteworthy developments in the blogosphere in recent weeks. Another one also occurred at RedState, and it was not nearly as exciting -- at least not for Josh Trevino, a RedState founder and board member who announced his departure as an editor over "differences of vision and purpose with the board and community."
Trevino announced his decision soon after he criticized President Bush for his response to Hurricane Katrina, and MyDD blogger Jerome Armstrong jumped to the conclusion that the two developments were related. "[T]hey can't even stand a bit for criticism of Bush, even when he's most obviously failed at leadership and execution in the face of a natural disaster," Armstrong wrote in describing what he sees as a key difference between liberal and conservative blogs.
But Trevino said that in Armstrong math, two plus two must equal five. "It's posts like this that leave me wondering why Armstrong garners the respect that he does," Trevino wrote in an e-mail to me. "I was not forced out for criticizing the president over his response to Katrina. I wasn't forced out at all. I chose to leave RedState for entirely different reasons."
Krempasky said this of Trevino's departure: "If Hollywood can cite 'creative differences,' I suppose that's about as close as it gets. Josh is extraordinarily talented, and he'll continue to do great things."
(A footnote to the story: Trevino inexplicably accused me of "left-wing ... fishing for a nonexistent scandal" simply because I asked him a question based on another blogger's comments. One of his readers kindly came to my defense.)
Armstrong is going places, too. Last month, he became the Internet director at Forward Together PAC. Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, is the honorary chairman.
"Where does Warner go next?" Armstrong wrote. "I dunno, stay tuned. Warner's said that he wants to be part of the national Democratic Party dialogue, with Forward Together, and I've been hired to facilitate that over the Internet."
Liberal blogger Ezra Klein also has a writing day job now. He starts work at The American Prospect on Monday. And Yahoo has hired blogger Kevin Sites to report from "hot zones" around the world.
Posted by | 05:11 PM
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