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November 06, 2006BELTWAY BLOGROLL
A Follow-Up On Campaign Bloggers
Last week's feature story on paid campaign bloggers has generated some feedback that merits an update.
For starters, my piece prompted Bill Beutler, a former colleague and the creator of The Hotline's Blogometer, took the information from my article and compiled a chart with prorated salaries for the bloggers and Internet experts I mentioned in the piece. I specifically chose not to do that in my article because of all the caveats that would have been necessary -- lump sums, irregular payments, etc. -- but Bill prefaced his analysis with those caveats. You can see the results at Blog P.I.
I also heard from a couple of bloggers mentioned in the story. Peter Daou wrote to say that he not only collects wages from HILLPAC, the political action committee of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., but also from Friends of Hillary, her Senate re-election campaign. I only mentioned the HILLPAC data in my story, and Daou actually earns more of his money from the Senate campaign.
In addition to the $1,250 a month he earns from HILLPAC, he said he receives $3,750 from Friends of Hillary. Daou further disclosed that he does blog consulting for AARP, Media Matters, PR Newswire and the U.N. Foundation. He said his income for the work is in the six figures.
As noted in my article, AARP also has paid Patrick Hynes of Ankle Biting Pundits for blog consulting. Daou said the two have separate agreements with the group.
Jerome Armstrong of MyDD also contacted me to say that my article should have made more clear distinctions about the type of work the various bloggers and Internet experts do for the campaigns and what their payments encompass. Some are employees of the campaigns, for instance, while others are consultants who must pay overhead costs. A couple of other readers made similar points in e-mails to me.
Blogger Ed Cone of North Carolina, meanwhile, added to my list of paid campaign bloggers by noting that Matthew Gross of Deride and Conquer "is doing some work for John Edwards and has been active elsewhere in the political arena as well."
If any other readers know of bloggers working for campaigns, either in a paid or volunteer capacity, please e-mail me at dglover@nationaljournal.com or post a comment to this blog entry.
Posted by Danny | 12:04 PM
