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December 29, 2006AT&T's Concessions: A Win For 'Net Neutrality'?
AT&T this week agreed to abide by the principle of "network neutrality" as a condition for its proposed merger with BellSouth, and some bloggers who have been fighting to guarantee that principle of equal treatment for high-speed Internet content are celebrating the agreement as a victory.
As noted in a column I wrote in May, numerous bloggers joined the Save the Internet coalition to fight for network neutrality. Though they lost the battle legislatively when Congress failed to clear a telecommunications law mandating the standard, the coalition is front and center in touting the regulatory "concession" by AT&T as a milestone in Internet history.
"In the 20th century, at crucial points," Columbia University law professor Tim Wu noted in a detailed analysis at the coalition's blog, "technologies like radio and the recording industry moved from being lively and vital decentralized industries toward much more centralized control, often due to misguided government policy and industry consolidation. Stated simply, [the AT&T] agreement forms part of a general movement to prevent a similar fate for the Internet."
Matt Stoller of MyDD said the merger is still a bad idea for the public but also claimed victory on net neutrality. "AT&T, the single worst company in terms of net neutrality, gave up a lot of ground to an angry public," he said of the company's concessions. "... For now, we can take solace in the fact a Bush-crony dominated FCC chairman, Kevin Martin, and a multi-billion dollar telecom industry, lost to a group of public interest advocates and a fed-up public."
Similar celebratory posts appeared at Daily Kos, The Huffington Post and Think Progress, with Josh Silver at The Huffington Post attributing the turn of events to successful online activism.
Jonathan Rintels, another blogger at The Huffington Post, also claimed victory but noted that it is only temporary because most parts of the agreement expire within 30 months.
"Thus, the battle now shifts to Congress to make these conditions permanent and preserve control of the Internet in the hands of the public, not the big telephone and cable monopolists," Rintels said. He did not mention the failure of that effort in Congress this year.
Dan Gillmor of the Center for Citizen Media took little solace in the "phony" and "sham" concessions by AT&T. He cited the analysis of Tom Evslin of Fractals of Change, who said it "would be a step backward if AT&T succeeds in having this definition of 'net neutrality' become a standard."
TechDirt also warned against "the sneaky fine print" of the agreement.
Posted by Danny at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)
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The 2008 Online Money Race
Reprinted from National Journal's Technology Daily
New Online Rules May Boost Presidential Fundraising
By Heather Greenfield
The Federal Election Commission last month quietly issued a ruling that was buried amid the news of the mid-term election. But the decision is one that some observers predict will play an unprecedented role in who wins the nominations for the 2008 election.
The FEC ruled that ActBlue, an online group that raises money for Democrats, can create draft funds and collect donations ahead of potential candidates announcing their candidacies.
"I think it is the most significant change in how people are going to raise money for public office in a long time," said R. Rebecca Donatelli, the chairwoman of Campaign Solutions and previously the lead Internet consultant for the 2000 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "This is a whole sea change, and I don't think people realize the difference it can make."
Until now, it was possible to raise pledges for would-be candidates. Candidates would explore their own viability by sending workers to collect pledges, usually from big donors.
But ActBlue founder Benjamin Rahn said anyone who has ever worked for a campaign knows the difficulty of collecting pledges with follow-up letters, calls or e-mails. The exercise gets exponentially harder when collecting from lots of small donors, like those who contribute at ActBlue, rather than from a few big ones.
"In 2004 the Clark folks did a great job, but it was hard for them to follow up on all the pledges," Rahn said of Democrat Wesley Clark. He had $1 million in pledges when he announced he would run. "With this [new system], the money is actually in the bank."
Organizations like ActBlue and the Republican counterpart, ABC PAC, can hold the money for candidates and transfer it within 10 days of official announcements. If a candidate does not enter the race, rules must be specified when donations are made for what will become of the money.
ActBlue told donors that if a candidate fails to form a presidential campaign committee before the Democratic National Convention, the money will go to the Democratic National Committee.
ActBlue raised $17 million for Democratic candidates during the last election cycle -- much of it increments of $10 to $25. Since the FEC ruling, ActBlue has raised $1,387 for Clark, $1,235 for Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, and $867 for former Vice President Al Gore.
Rahn said the donations serve as a real-time poll of support for the candidates. "This is expanding the pool of people in deciding whether someone should make that run" for the presidency.
Outgoing FEC Chairman Michael Toner, a Republican who voted with the 4-2 majority to approve collecting money for non-candidates, made a similar observation, calling it an "innovative way" to involve small donors in the presidential race. He added that he expects Republican-leaning groups to copy the idea soon.
Jason Torchinsky, the general counsel to ABC PAC, called the ruling "great news." He said donations to potential Republican candidates on his site would go to the Republican National Committee, with "a little for ABC PAC," if a candidate does not eventually run.
"Where it becomes bigger is if we could raise money for other offices," Torchinsky said. "The FEC ruling could appear to allow that."
What is more of a gray area is whether it is possible to raise money against an undeclared candidate -- for example, collecting money for the eventual Republican opponent to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
Torchinsky was the deputy general counsel to the 2004 re-election campaign of President Bush and said 80 percent to 85 percent of contributions exceeded $200, at which point organizations like his must provide contributors' occupations and employers. But in 2006, he said, few of the people who donated to the online "Rightroots" drive for specific House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates gave anywhere near that amount.
Both Democrats and Republicans hope the FEC ruling will give them not just a huge boost of early funds to influence who run and possibly who wins the nomination, but an expanded e-mail list of small donors who could easily be approached for more money later.
Posted by Danny at 05:27 PM | Comments (1)
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At first, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said he doesn't write the entries for his new blog, TomDeLay.com. "I’m not a very good writer," he said on MSNBC's "Hardball." "I have the ideas, and I have somebody else put the words together."
Days later, he told Reuters that he writes the entries but leaves the typing to his aides because "I can't type."
If DeLay can't even get his story straight on something as simple as how his blog his written, how in the world is he going to survive the various legal proceedings surrounding his last few years in Congress?
-- Blogger Juan Melli of BlueJersey was named politician of the year in New Jersey by PoliticsNJ. The site proclaimed Melli "the Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of New Jersey," a reference to the founder of Daily Kos.
-- Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell sent an end-of-the-year note to bloggers in the state. Extreme Mortman has the details, including this quote: "Increasingly there is no distinction made between a report on the radio and a post on a blog. I welcome this change, for I have long believed that a republican form of government can only be successful with an informed citizenry."
-- If Democrat John Edwards runs for president again in 2008, his wife, Elizabeth, could be his ticket to support from Democratic bloggers. Her willingness to engage them already has won her some fans.
-- Jonathan Singer of MyDD is calling for "strict regulations" of political "robocalls," recorded messages that gained notoriety, and much condemnation from Democratic bloggers in particular, late in this year's campaign.
-- Columnist Rich Miller in the Chicago Sun-Times: "It seems like almost every time I read a mainstream media story about political Web sites and bloggers, the pieces are full of ill-informed junk." He mentioned the recent diatribe by Joseph Rago of The Wall Street Journal as a specific example, but he just as easily could have chosen the rant of syndicated columnist George Will that came soon after. (By the way, add Chris Bowers of MyDD to the list of Rago's critics.)
-- Matt Stoller of MyDD resurrected his charge that Jill Hazelbaker anonymously posted comments on liberal blogs this year while working for New Jersey Senate candidate Thomas Kean Jr. What motivated Stoller to attack again? Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has hired Hazelbaker as the communications director for his potential 2008 presidential campaign in New Hampshire.
-- Shock magazine is no more, and Instapundit is giving the credit to milblogger Michael Yon, whose copyright allegations publicly humiliated the publication.
-- "Ten Moments The Web Shook The World" (Los Angeles Times).
-- Ari Melber, a contributor at The Huffington Post, invited bloggers and journalists to join him in making a political New Year's resolution: Pay less attention to Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.
Posted by Danny at 04:06 PM | Comments (0)
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The Media's View Of Chinese Blogs
What do foreign correspondents think of the blogs in China? Rebecca MacKinnon of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University has the answers in a blog entry that previews her forthcoming research for an academic paper.
Here are two of the more interesting highlights:
-- A whopping 90 percent of the foreign correspondents surveyed follow blogs from China as part of their work.
-- Most of them find blogs useful for story ideas, some of them even more useful than traditional news forums like BBC and CNN.
Posted by Danny at 03:40 PM | Comments (0)
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U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay in Texas has ruled that one Internet site's deep links to the webcasts of motorcycle races on another Web site are illegal.
News.com reports that Lindsay last week said the links on a site called Supercrosslive are "not a 'fair use' of copyright material" and ordered him to stop linking directly to streaming audio files. The audio webcasts are copyrighted by SFX Motor Sports, a Texas company that produces "Supercross" racing events.
Some blogs already test the legal boundaries of copyright law by directly posting copyrighted audio and video clips to their sites. John Aravosis of Americablog, for instance, recently was banned from YouTube for posting content owned by Comedy Central.
If allowed to stand, the ruling could set a precedent for deep links that would affect even more bloggers. It would be illegal not only to reproduce copyrighted content directly on blogs but also could be illegal to link indirectly back to specific pages on the sites where webcasts are published.
News.com noted, however, that another federal judge allowed the use of such deep links in a 2000 dispute between Ticketmaster and Tickets.com. He said "hyperlinking does not itself involve a violation of the Copyright Act" because "no copying is involved."
Posted by Danny at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
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The Next Thomas Paine
The decision by Time magazine to name "you" as the 2006 "Person of the Year" really bugs George Will -- especially because it gives props to all of the narcissists who he thinks own the blogosphere.
After Time's choice was announced over the weekend, the conservative commentator wasted no time in going on the air and ridiculing the choice. As Think Progress noted, Will mocked the decision on ABC's "This Week."
"It's about narcissism,” he said. “So much of what is done on the Web is people getting on there and writing their diaries as though everyone ought to care about everyone's inner turmoils. I mean, it's extraordinary.”
Not content to slam the blogosphere on television, Will then decided to dedicate ink to the topic in his next column for The Washington Post. It appears this morning and takes Time managing editor Richard Stengel to task for comparing bloggers to American revolutionary heroes Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine.
Will's retort:
Not exactly. Franklin's extraordinary persona informed what he wrote but was not the subject of what he wrote. Paine was perhaps history's most consequential pamphleteer. There are expected to be 100 million bloggers worldwide by the middle of 2007, which is why none will be like Franklin or Paine. Both were geniuses; genius is scarce. Both had a revolutionary civic purpose, which they accomplished by amazing exertions. Most bloggers have the private purpose of expressing themselves for their own satisfaction.
Will does have a point. I haven't seen any Franklins or Paines in the blogosphere. But he also misses the bigger issue: Thanks to the amazing online tools of the 21st century that Will ridicules, when another statesman like Franklin or Paine does come along, he will have a much easier time spreading his message and winning followers.
Whether in America or countries that haven't yet tasted the sweet freedoms we too often take for granted, the democratic revolutionaries of tomorrow don't need a printing press to be heard; they don't need ABC's "This Week"; they don't need The Washington Post; and they don't need the kind of money that talking heads like Will earn for condescending rants against "the people."
All they need to share their vision is access to a computer, and they can reach the entire world.
Sure, much of the content on the Internet is driven by egotism. Then again, so is much of the content on talk shows and op-ed pages. George Will may not disclose his inner turmoils to the world, but he speaks and writes "as though everyone ought to care" -- and sometimes they should.
Sometimes people should care what bloggers say, too. Maybe someday, Will and his colleagues in the journalistic ivory tower will listen. And just maybe they will hear the next Thomas Paine.
UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times had a piece yesterday on "Reporting's Mass Appeal." Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine didn't like the tone of the coverage but highlighted his favorite quotes, including a reference about the return "to the time of the lonely pamphleteer or the tramp printers in the Europe."
UPDATE II: The Nashville Scene offered a peek into the narcissism that does exist in the blogosphere: "The main content in most Nashville-based blogs last week was about a meeting of bloggers at a restaurant owned by a blogger. Bloggers blogged about their anticipation of the event, they posted photos on their blogs of themselves with other bloggers, and many bloggers rushed home to blog about how nice it was to meet people who are bloggers -- just like themselves!"
Posted by Danny at 09:17 AM | Comments (2)
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As noted this morning at Technology Daily:
A company that helps advertisers connect with bloggers who are willing to write about their products for payment will require disclosure from the online authors now that the FTC has issued an advisory opinion on the practice.
AP reports that under the new policy, bloggers must disclose that they are accepting payment, either in the write-up or in a general disclosure on their sites.
The FTC said in a Dec. 7 staff opinion that failure to disclose such sponsorships could violate consumer-protection laws on deception. The FTC did not say whether it would launch an investigation into the company, PayPerPost.
Here is the reaction from tech bloggers:
-- Jason Calacanis: "It's game waaaaaaaaaay over for PayPerPost. Google is smacking them down, and the FTC is on their doorstep. They will clean up their act now, and their 'let the marketplace give us our ethics' [argument] has now happened. The industry (in the form of bloggers and Google) and the government (in the form of the FTC) have told PayPerPost clearly: Stop enabling deception."
-- Tech Crunch: "This isn't a perfect fix for PayPerPost. Advertisers can still require a positive post about their products, and the disclosure does not have to be within the post itself. ... Still, it is a big move in the right direction."
Posted by Danny at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)
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An Ivory Tower Editor's Attack On Blogs
"The Blog Mob" -- that's the headline on the anti-blog screed that Joseph Rago, an assistant editorial features editor at The Wall Street Journal wrote today for OpinionJournal.
Rago resurrected some well-worn criticisms of blogs and embellished them with a feature writer's flair, like this: "The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps."
He also dismissed most blogs as "pretty awful," many of the most popular ones as "downright appalling," and the medium as a whole as "homogenous." While that may be true, the same could be said of the mainstream media when you look at it as one big mass.
Ultimately, Rago resorted to the "mob" label that Steve Lovelady of Columbia Journalism Review pinned on blogs long ago. "Mobs are exciting," he wrote. "People also like validation of what they already believe; the Internet, like all free markets, has a way of gratifying the mediocrity of the masses."
Read it all if you're in the mood for another rant about how clueless republican journalists (the aristocrats) are when it comes to the democratic blogosphere (the peasants with pitchforks).
UPDATE: John Cole of Balloon Juice called Rago's piece "frighteningly accurate," QandO critiques Rago's piece at length.
Posted by Danny at 12:28 PM | Comments (8)
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'A Bunch Of Little Boys Crying Wolf'
If we ... throw all of our might against one poorly phrased sentence, we won't be able to mount a more serious opposition to a far more serious development. I mean, we go apoplectic all the friggin' time, we quickly turn the movement into a bunch of little boys crying wolf.
When he wrote the excerpt above, Chris Bowers of MyDD was speaking specifically of Democratic bloggers who lashed out at incoming Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for supportive statements about briefly sending more troops to Iraq.
But Bowers' point also could be -- and I think should be -- taken as a profound statement about bloggers in general.
UPDATE: Reid revised and extended his remarks at The Huffington Post, and that gave Bowers another news peg to lecture his blogosphere brethren again:
Or, maybe, there are elements in the blogosphere who are exactly like the establishment media that we so decry, and are not willing to cut any Democratic leaders any slack on any statements they ever make. Maybe there are some people, even in the progressive blogosphere, who drool at even the slimmest opportunity to attack Democratic leaders. ... Maybe there are some people desperate for any proof that Democratic leaders are not progressive enough to deserve their support, thereby validating their personal identities as purely moral, progressive martyrs who are permanently un-represented by anyone with any actual power in American politics.
Again, a profound statement not just about Democratic/progressive bloggers but bloggers in general.
Posted by Danny at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
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Political Technologies, the company owned by MyDD founder Jerome Armstrong, has received $75,000 for "computer consulting services" over 14 months from the political action committee of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner. Most of that money was paid while Warner was considered a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2008.
Now that Warner has decided against a run -- OK, maybe he hasn't decided for sure -- Armstrong is sharing his advice for free on the Internet. Here are some excerpts from an interview Armstrong granted to Personal Democracy Forum on the lessons he learned while working for Warner:
-- "A candidate Web site, even one for someone seeking the presidential nomination, can't expect to compete with the number of eyeballs that the top blogs are getting. The failure, for example, is of not adopting the Web 2.0 platforms, integrating sites such as Flickr and YouTube into the Web sites for multimedia content, Blogads and search terms for advertising, and tags and RSS for content."-- On the tool side, I was impressed by a Republican site, the Perry Alliance Network, with its utilization of a points-based rewards and incentives program in its online activism, something that's all too lacking within campaign and organizational social-networking sites. By far though, the more impressive was the amount of blogger coordination that happened in '06, such as the Internet outreach done by Jon Tester's Senate campaign and the integration of in-state bloggers by Jim Webb's Senate campaign, notably through Raising Kaine.
-- Armstrong also said a technology called OpenID will have the biggest impact in 2008. "[O]n OpenID-enabled Web sites, users don't need to create and manage a new account for every site before being granted access. Instead, they only need to be able to authenticate with a trusted site that supports OpenID. ... For the netroots, that's going to make moving across the blogs and interacting much easier for the users. ... This will also provide the backbone for progressive candidates and organizations to tap into the netroots."
One footnote: According to the latest Federal Election Commission records, Political Technologies received its most recent payment of $5,000 from the Warner campaign Nov. 2, nearly a month after Warner announced he was not running for president.
That is consistent with Armstrong's Oct. 12 MyDD entry that said, "I'll remain associated with the Forward Together PAC in the near term to see it to completion."
Posted by Danny at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
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2006 Weblog Award Winners
The votes have been counted, and this year's winner for "Best Media Blog" in the 2006 Weblog Awards is ... The Raw Story, with 52 percent of the vote.
NewsBusters finished a distant second at 24 percent. Thanks to all who voted for Beltway Blogroll, which finished in eighth place among the 10 finalists.
Other winners this year were:
-- Daily Kos as the best blog;
-- Think Progress as the best liberal blog;
-- Little Green Footballs as the best conservative blog;
-- The Moderate Voice as the best centrist blog;
-- Blackfive as the best military blog;
-- The Volokh Conspiracy as the best law blog;
-- The Club For Growth as the best business blog;
-- Crooks & Liars as the best video blog;
-- And TalkLeft as the best of the top 250 blogs.
Posted by Danny at 07:20 PM | Comments (0)
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In The Blog's-Eye: The Blogs vs. John McCain
If you want to be president in the information age, it's probably not a good idea to get the blogosphere on your bad side. Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2000, apparently has not grasped that basic rule of thumb yet.
Before the 109th Congress ended last week, McCain decided to introduce one last bill. The cause is one that most everyone would endorse: curtailing child pornography. But one means to that end -- punishing Internet sites that fail to report pornographic content on their servers -- does not sit well with bloggers who, thanks to an article in News.com, see McCain's bill as an attack against them.
From the left, Think Progress dubbed the measure "John McCain's War On Blogs." Even though the text of the bill never mentions blogs, Think Progress said it "would treat blogs like Internet service providers and hold them responsible for all activity in the comments sections and user profiles" and warned ominously that it "could deal a serious blow to the blogosphere. Lacking resources to police their sites, many individual blogs may have to shut down open discussion."
That tirade prompted John Aravosis of Americablog to write this: "John McCain is an arch-conservative Republican who wants the government involved in all of your business. Now he's concerned that political blogs are somehow refuges for child sex predators."
"Is there nothing these politicians won't pander to using the public's fear of sex offenders?" Jeralyn Merritt asked at TalkLeft.
McCain also incurred the wrath of the RedState directors on the right, who said the bill threaten "the very existence of the blogosphere."
"Bloggers could be forced to pay fines for not regulating the amount of spam on their blog -- any links that make it through the obscenity filters could spark regulation and punishment -- and in addition," the directors wrote, "according to the smart folks at the Center for Democracy and Technology, any membership-based site that allowed a sexual predator to register could be subject to penalties."
Another writer at RedState accused McCain of trying to censor the Internet.
McCain's staff tried to head off the brewing blog swarm by e-mailing Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, who earlier this year did a podcast with McCain, and insisting that the legislation does not apply to blogs. But Reynolds, a law professor in Tennessee, said the text "doesn't seem entirely clear to me that it doesn't reach individual bloggers, regardless of intent."
James Joyner of Outside the Beltway noted that the bill clearly is not aimed at the kinds of political bloggers who are itching for a fight.
"I scanned through the legislation to see if McCain had somehow hid an anti-political blogging section in the bill but could find no evidence of that," Joyner wrote. "... The requirement is hardly an onerous one, let alone a 'war on blogs.' Most of us monitor user comments and the like already. In principle, I have no objection to complying with such a law if it passes."
But bloggers and readers who want to believe the worst of McCain will continue to do just that -- though not necessarily because of his anti-porn bill, which died at the end of the Congress just days after it was introduced. As Reynolds noted, "E-mail from InstaPundit readers is universally mistrustful of McCain, which is indicative of just how much damage he's done himself with his support of campaign finance "reform."
Posted by Danny at 01:59 PM | Comments (12)
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Analysts at the Gartner research firm are predicting that the rise of blogs will plateau next year.
The research, as summarized by Tech Trends, speaks of blogs in general and not political blogs, which makes sense considering that 2008 is a presidential election year and will feature neither an incumbent nor a vice president seeking a promotion. Time magazine also just named the symbolic "you" as "person of the year," in part because of the blogging trend.
But the political blogosphere is nearing a peak as well. I predict that it will come in 2009, after the next presidential election.
Political blogs will be a powerful force during the 2007-2008 election cycle and may even make or break the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees. If bloggers choose, they also could be a factor in picking an "alternative" Unity '08 ticket or vaulting some heretofore unknown third-party movement(s) into political prominence.
The next two years, however, will be the heyday for political blogs. While they will remain influential after that and new ones will continue to go online and gain popularity, their novelty will wane, the growth curve will level, and the blogs quickly will become an unheralded part of a newly merged media/political/activist landscape. The new media revolution will continue, but blogs will become a less prominent part of it.
I have absolutely no research to support that belief; it's just a bold, from-the-gut prediction by a guy who has been watching the blogosphere for years. That prediction may come back to haunt me, but there you have it.
Posted by Danny at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)
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This being the year of the YouTube election, it makes perfect sense that Time magazine today named "you" -- as in you, me and everyone else engaged in the new media revolution -- as "person of the year."
Other factors included the public's embrace of blogs, podcasts, the online collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia, social-networking sites like MySpace, and even virtual likenesses of ourselves at Second Life.
Here is the magazine's explanation for why it granted the award to the army of Davids and gate-crashers who are winning the war of Web 2.0:
For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you. ... This is an opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person.
Of course, a mainstream media outlet like Time couldn't possibly say something flattering about "the people" without also poking a stick in the eye of America. So "you" also gets this unroyal rhetorical treatment:
Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred.
The criticism is fair, as anyone who has spent time online knows. But it certainly wasn't necessary.
It's not the first time average Joes and Janes have been won such recognition. ABC News named bloggers as the "people of the year" in 2004, in part for their political coverage during the presidential election, and Merriam-Webster recognized "blog" as the top word of that year.
UPDATE: Captain's Quarters called Time's selection the "suck-up version" of person of the year. "Naming all of us may make us feel good about our anonymity, but in the end it's either pandering to millions of readers or a refusal to take a stand on anyone," Ed Morrissey wrote. "Choosing everyone is an abdication on the entire purpose of the project."
UPDATE II: William Beutler at Blog P.I. presciently predited Time's cover back in October and even crafted his own version of a potential cover.
More blog reactions to the person of the year are in the extended entry.
-- Althouse: "I'm sorry. This is just too unfathomably dorky to talk about. ... Do not let them succeed in their attempt to use you -- to use 'you' -- to go viral. And since you probably already did, please stop now. You dork!"
-- BuzzMachine: "[T]here's no news here. This is nothing new. We have always been in charge. It's just that the people who thought they had the power now have no choice to but hear us and recognize that we are, and always have been, the boss."
-- Eschaton: "It's a truly wonderful thing that the internets lets everyone self-publish for free and potentially have an influence. But, you know, most people don't actually do any of that. And fewer of those who try have any success."
-- Russell Shaw at The Huffington Post: "To me this thinking is condescending, patronizing, marketing-driven hooey. I mean you can -- and quite probably do -- have millions of little islands of citizen created content where the majority opinion is that the Bush war in Iraq was/is a bad idea, and we should get out much sooner rather than later. But at the end of a year when "you had all this influence, guess what happens. Bush ignores the Iraq Study Group and is thinkng hard about how to inject 20,000 or so fresh troops into the Iraq theater."
-- TalkLeft: "It's really not us, of course, it's the web. But I guess saying it's us personalizes it a bit. ... I guess we've arrived. (sarcasm)."
-- Wizbang reminds us all about how comic art imitates life by recalling a comedian's skit about magazines that show "how increasingly narcissistic Americans are becoming."
-- Go to Memeorandum for even more news and commentary on the "person of the year" front.
Posted by Danny at 01:03 PM | Comments (2)
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Matt Lewis of The Ballot Box offered this unsolicited advice to Republican Mitt Romney if he is serious about running for president in 2008: "Hire a blogger now."
"What you need more than anything," Lewis added, "is someone who has a relationship with conservative bloggers -- someone who goes to the meetings and knows the secret handshake. You don't need a journalist, you need an operative/activist."
I offered similar advice to Sen. George Allen in the summer, and he eventually hired blogger Jon Henke of QandO. It was too late to matter in Allen's race, though, and that's why Lewis argues that earlier is better when it comes to hiring someone who knows bloggers and how the blogosphere works.
That's good advice for all candidates, whether Democratic or Republican, presidential, congressional or gubernatorial. I fully expect many more candidates in 2008 to follow the example set by the handful who paid bloggers and other new media advisers in 2006.
-- From a New York Times editorial: "For all the worthy proposals for ethics reform being hashed out by the incoming Congress, a heavy dose of Internet transparency should not be overlooked in the effort to repair lawmakers' tattered credibility. The technology is already there, along with the public's appetite for more disclosure about the byways of power in Congress."
-- According to the Sunlight Foundation, two freshman Democratic lawmakers have taken the message to heart: Rep.-elect Kirsten Gillebrand of New York and Sen.-elect Jon Tester of Montana.
-- Another Sunlight project aims to draft an "open government agenda" into legislative language. The group is using collaborative "wiki" software at MorePerfect.org to get the public involved in that effort.
-- Zephyr Teachout, the foundation's national director, is practicing what she preaches on the transparency front. She penned an "open lobby report" that detailed her online contact with Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga.
Teachout also is taking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to task for planning a "secret meeting" between Democrats and Republicans in an attempt to overcome gridlock. "As several other papers and blogs have cried out, stop this crazy plan before it starts a new habit of closedness!"
-- Investigative journalism, blogging and liberal activism intersect at an outfit called the Center for Independent Media, which this year trained, funded and supported political bloggers through two projects called Colorado Confidential and Minnesota Monitor. Eric Alterman has more details at The Huffington Post.
The work of the center caused a stir in Minnesota this year when the bloggers who received funding through it failed to disclose that relationship.
-- Wanna know what the business world is blogging about. Follow the company-by-company links at the new Business Blog Roundup at ShopFloor, the blog of the National Association of Manufacturers. Here's what NAM blogger-in-chief Pat Cleary said about the move:
Manufacturers have always led the nation in innovation and technology, so it's not surprising that we are pioneering in Internet communications as well. The traditional news media isn't going away any time soon, but the way people get information is changing, and it is imperative that business communicators be part of the revolution. ...It's a big blogosphere out there and it's going to get a lot bigger. Corporations and thought-leaders are turning to blogs like never before -- offering an affordable, timely and quick way to receive and distribute news. The NAM is channeling that influence and bringing it together in one place -- Shopfloor.org.
Posted by Danny at 12:41 PM | Comments (0)
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Digging Up The Dirt On Bloggers?
There is a rumor flying around the blogosphere that the campaign of Sen.-elect James Webb, the Virginia Democrat who paid two bloggers as consultants to his campaign, compiled "opposition research" files on various bloggers this year -- including on the two who worked for him, Josh Chernilla and Lowell Feld.
Virginia blogger Shaun Kenney started the rumor. My former National Journal colleague Bill Beutler then mentioned it at Blog P.I., and that prompted an "instalanche" after a link at Instapundit.
Jessica Vanden Berg of the Webb campaign denied the story in a response to J.C. Wilmore of The Richmond Democrat, one of the bloggers mentioned by Kenney. "We don't have an opposition research on you," Vanden Berg said. "We don't have any opposition research books on any people who blog."
But that hasn't kept bloggers from chattering about the implications of the story. Here's what they are saying:
Bloggers who allegedly were targets of the research
-- Chad Dotson at RedState: "Making sure they kept their own guys on the reservation may have been as important as keeping an eye on the opposition. Again, we'll see how much of this story is legit. Either way, the lesson may be that campaigns ignore the blogosphere at their peril. Just ask George Allen."
-- Jon Henke of QandO, who worked for Webb's Republican opponent, Sen. George Allen: "I'm not sure if the story about the Webb camp digging up oppo research on ... me is true, but I'm not really sure it was inappropriate, either. In any event, bloggers shouldn't be naive. They are playing with very ruthless people who will not hesitate to spread rumors and innuendos. Forewarned is forearmed."
-- Ben Tribbett of Not Larry Sabato: "The staff involved can not keep their story straight. One person pointed out they had a report done on them, and we should feel complimented, and another denied any such thing existed."
-- Wilmore of The Richmond Democrat: "When you stop to think about it you can't help but realize how silly it is that someone would think that Lowell Feld, Josh Chernila, Ben Tribbett or J.C. Wilmore could be a threat to Jim Webb -- a man we all idolized. The mere suggestion is an insult to us all."
Other commentators
-- Blog P.I.: "It shouldn't be too surprising that the Webb campaign would do this, if they did this. Recent history gives us good reason to assume that politicians are wary of bloggers, certainly more so than traditional volunteers (who do not make a point of expressing their opinions in public)."
-- Instapundit: "It's not at all clear that the Webb campaign did this, but those who have ambitions toward being paid political bloggers for campaigns should expect that this may well happen to them. As blogging goes more mainstream, I'd say it's inevitable."
Posted by Danny at 01:49 PM | Comments (0)
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Liberal blogger David Sirota this week took Rep. Barney Frank to task for his talk of a "grand bargain" with the business community.
Frank, D-Mass., then chastised Sirota at The Huffington Post for "misrepresentations of my economic viewpoint."
Sirota answered with a grand bargain of his own for Frank: "[W]e, the progressive movement, will help you promote the hell out of your proposals to make this economy more fair for regular working stiffs, if, as you pledged, you will not offer up concessions on the core economic justice agenda that don't need to be made. Now that sounds like a 'grand bargain' that helps everyone."
That kind of back-and-forth between bloggers and politicians is admirable yet still quite rare, so it is worth noting.
Posted by Danny at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)
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From Briefs To Blogs
Reprinted with permission of National Journal magazine.
By Bara Vaida
At the U.S. Supreme Court, Tom Goldstein's blog is a popular read. The Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld partner doesn't know exactly who inside the marbled walls is reading his online forum, SCOTUS Blog. But Goldstein knows that hundreds of hits a day are coming from the Supreme Court building.
The four-year-old SCOTUS Blog has become an inside-the-Beltway favorite among lawyers, professors, journalists, and perhaps even Supreme Court justices. Written by Goldstein, who heads Akin Gump's Supreme Court practice, and four other lawyers and a reporter, the blog offers information on scheduled arguments; transcripts of oral arguments; the court's latest orders, grants, and decisions; analysis of arguments and decisions; and the most-recent news. It also serves as a hub for online discussions.
Before the Internet age, none of what the Supreme Court did was easily accessible. To get information, a law firm had to send a paralegal to the court building for copies of opinions and pay someone to attend court proceedings. It was only in October that the court began posting on its Web site transcripts of oral arguments on the same day they were delivered.
"The Supreme Court is a closed-door place, so we gather the information for the entire bar," says Goldstein, 36, who has argued more than a dozen cases before the court.
The site promotes Goldstein's analytical skills and is a marketing tool for Akin Gump. Goldstein isn't alone; there are now thousands of lawyers and law professors writing blogs to promote their viewpoints and showcase their work. The result has been an expansion of sources for legal news, a flourishing of legal scholarship online, and new opportunities for lawyers to build their careers and pitch their firms.
Although no one knows how many of the Web's estimated 57 million blogs are written by lawyers, the site blawg.com lists 1,271 links to blogs devoted to legal issues. Many are written by legal experts on particular subjects, such as patent or election law, but there also are blogs in which lawyers reflect on issues ranging from the bar review process to gossip about law firm activity.
"Blogs have gained a foothold within the legal profession in a way that you haven't seen anywhere except for journalism and punditry," says Robert Ambrogi, a lawyer and the author of "The Essential Guide to the Best (and Worst) Legal Sites on the Web." Blogs have "become a significant way for lawyers to get news, and they are being recognized as authoritative sources of information."
Mark Levy, counsel at Kilpatrick Stockton and a specialist in appellate litigation, used to get most of his legal news through snail-mailed newsletters or from a legal database. Now he learns about decisions quickly, often checking sites devoted to a particular topic to see what lawyers are saying about a point of law.
"If I am writing a brief and there is a case from another circuit that is on point, I will now know about it that day or within a day or two," Levy says. "It makes you a better professional."
Lawyers are also using blogs to present their clients' viewpoints. Kent Jarrell, director of litigation communication at APCO Worldwide, represents drugmaker Merck, which has been fighting lawsuits brought by individuals who contend they were injured by the company's Vioxx pain reliever. Jarrell monitors blogs that discuss the lawsuits, and he will occasionally post comments in response, as well as contact the blog's author directly to discuss Merck's position.
"It's a different kind of conversation," Jarrell says. "It offers opportunities to talk directly to people who are very interested in the specifics of a case, and that is very helpful to clients."
Blogs can also become a marketing tool. Dennis Crouch, a visiting assistant professor at Boston University School of Law, started writing the blog Patently-O when he was a first-year associate at the law firm McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff. The blog, which provides information and analysis on patent cases, caught the attention of university officials and led to Crouch's teaching slot.
"A blog can significantly enhance a lawyer's prominence ... if they show themselves to be consistently perceptive and analytical," says Ambrogi, who noted that through his blog, Crouch rose to become nationally recognized in his field.
As instant-publishing mediums, blogs are becoming an adjunct to legal scholarship. Law schools produce lengthy, analytical commentaries on case law through the institution's paper-based law review, which generally takes many months to produce. Jack Balkin, a Yale law school constitutional professor and the creator of the blog Balkinization, says that blogs have made the law-review process more like journalism where lawyers are instantly commenting back and forth on cases, speeding up the breadth and depth of legal scholarship.
"Legal bloggers now rush to comment on important new cases the day they come down," Balkin wrote in an online posting on the "Pocket Part," a companion to the Yale Law Journal. "The end of each year's Supreme Court term brings a veritable orgy of blogging."
An example of these discussions can be found on the Volokh Conspiracy, a Web site for libertarian and conservative law professors. On Dec. 11, Ilya Somin, an assistant law professor at George Mason University, blogged about an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hear an eminent domain case. Somin's post received a number of responses, to which Somin replied in kind, resulting in a multiparty discussion about individual property rights and the law.
Underscoring how law blogs have seeped into scholarly discussions, 489 law review articles in the United States and Canada have referenced specific blogs, according to Ian Best, a graduate of Ohio State University's Moritz School of Law who has researched the impact of blogs on the law.
An even more significant figure is the number of judges who are reading and using the blogs. Best found 32 examples where judges cited legal blogs in their decisions on 27 different cases. The blog referenced most often -- 24 times in 19 cases -- was Sentencing Law and Policy, which is authored by Douglas Berman, a professor at Ohio State who writes about sentencing law. In February 2006, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Judith Lanzinger cited Berman's blog in a decision finding certain portions of the state's sentencing law to be unconstitutional.
In an interview with Best, Lanzinger said she reads blogs periodically and finds them informative.
"I wanted readers of the opinion to have the most-current information on a narrow issue, and so I cited a blog that directs a reader to primary sources themselves," Lanzinger said, according to a transcript of her interview.
Further, just as blogs have been influencing politics, blogging lawyers are having an impact on public policy because journalists are using their sites as sources for stories. Balkinization is a prime example: It became a source of information for The New York Times and other news organizations covering the Bush administration's policy on torture.
In January 2005, Martin Lederman, a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center, was scrutinizing the most recent Bush administration opinion on the legal definition of torture when he realized that the White House had quietly drawn a legal line of exemption for certain types of torture on suspected al Qaeda operatives who were in U.S. custody but not on U.S. soil.
"Because I know how to read documents and look between the lines, I was able to figure out that there was a big back story," says Lederman, who is a contributor to Balkinization. "That the [memos] were saying that the [Central Intelligence Agency] was immune from these [torture] laws."
Before blogs, Lederman probably would have called a few reporters to alert them to the opinion but not done much else. With Balkinization, he could post his conclusions for public consumption. Within days, the Times, other news media and fellow bloggers picked up on Lederman's analysis, and their reports caught the attention of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. At the end of 2005, Congress passed a measure to ban "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of individuals in U.S. custody.
"I'm not sure if my analysis would have had as big an impact" if the blog didn't exist, says Lederman, who was credited by Time magazine with being the "first newshound" to reveal the CIA exemption. "Many times a story is buried beneath legalese, so I provide the analysis and give reporters a sense of what to look for, and they go do the hard investigative work. I see it as a public service."
Selected blogs read by D.C. lawyers
-- Above the Law: news and behind-the-scenes gossip from the legal world.
-- Balkinization: left-leaning blog by constitutional law professors.
-- Bench Memos: part of The National Review Online.
-- How Appealing: devoted to appellate court litigation.
-- Law Blog: part of The Wall Street Journal Online.
-- Legal Blog Watch: produced by American Lawyer Media.
-- Patently-O: follows the latest news in patent law.
-- SCOTUS Blog: run by lawyers at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.
-- Volokh Conspiracy: forum for libertarian and conservative law professors.
Posted by Danny at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)
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Blogging is still in the early stages of the technological revolutionary curve in Congress. As the blogroll to your left indicates, only a couple of dozen lawmakers currently have blogs.
But the potential for change, at least in the House, is much greater as of this week. The House Administration Committee just approved secure blog software that will be available to every member. Aliya Sternstein, our new e-government reporter at Technology Daily had the scoop today. Here is a reprint of the article:
House Offers Standard Blog Software To Members
By Aliya Sternstein
The House this week notified its members that secure blog software is now available for those who choose to maintain online journals.
Salley Collins, a spokeswoman for the House Administration Committee, said members still can use blog tools from other vendors if they meet House security requirements. Outgoing House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., already keeps a blog, as do several other House members.
The House tool is compatible with all Web platforms, Collins said. "We offer member offices both Unix and Windows Web platforms for their site, so it was important that the blog tool run independently and be easily portable between those platforms."
The legislative and executive branches increasingly are considering the online soapboxes as tools to pitch their agendas.
There are some rules for blog correspondence on congressional sites. "The general rule of thumb is content of Web sites should comply with the same regulations of franked mail," Collins said. Such official mass communications by members of Congress include: constituent mail relating to public issues; newsletters and questionnaires; and federal publications, laws and regulations.
While blogs are not yet widespread on federal Web sites, the CIA uses more than 1,000 internal blogs, and Montgomery County, Md., hosts a blog for the Division of Solid Waste.
"To my knowledge there are no government-wide blog-specific rules," said Bev Godwin, director of operations at FirstGov, the federal government's Internet portal. "Some rules about government information apply to blogs as they would for any information the government distributes."
Last month, FirstGov announced a new blog primer that is online for agency Web content managers. The site notes at the top that it "is a work in progress as we all learn more about using blogs on government Web sites."
Godwin said of the site, "These are guidelines to help agencies understand what blogs are and issues to consider regarding government blogs." FirstGov officials are encouraging Web managers to add information to the site.
After the blog resource went live, Godwin received a survey on local government blogging activities conducted by a city in Texas. Web managers also have sent her advice on how to select blogging software.
The Senate chief information officer could not be reached for comment about any plans for blog software in the upper chamber.
Posted by Danny at 04:07 PM | Comments (0)
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Have You Voted Lately?
Beltway Blogroll is a nominee for "Best Media Blog" in the 2006 Weblog Awards.
If you haven't voted yet today and like what you see here, please vote for this blog. You can vote once a day, and polling ends Friday.
Go here to vote. Thanks.
Posted by Danny at 04:17 PM | Comments (0)
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Matt Stoller of MyDD is not too thrilled with Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm these days.
She is expected to sign into law a bill that would allow video providers to receive statewide franchises rather than approaching localities individually. Stoller and others see the bill, cleared this week, as a lost chance to impose "network neutrality" rules on high-speed Internet operators.
He started the week by implying that Granholm is "selling out" and later said she "is helping destroy the Internet."
"Politically speaking, chalk this one up to inexperience on our part," Stoller said after the legislation was cleared. "We came in late and didn't explain the situation clearly -- even Google made missteps. There was some momentum, and we did force a debate, but it was too little too late. The fight is at the state level. Watch out for your state now."
Stoller also has another favorite target this week in U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue.
-- Brad Friedman is the go-to activist in the blogosphere on the e-voting front. That explains why Rep. Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who has taken the lead in the debate over the security of e-voting, went to The Brad Blog last week to respond to a concern of Friedman's about something Holt had said.
-- Attacks from the blogosphere against a Minnesota school board member.
-- A state lawmaker in Texas appears to have backed down from her push to punish bloggers for online defamation. At least one newspaper blogger in the Lone Star State wishes the lawmakers, Rep. Vicki Truitt, had stood firm.
-- The Media Bloggers Association, of which I am a member, has some ideas for making the blog world more professional, including an online course about legal issues in the blogosphere. I expect plenty of kickback from bloggers, many of whom reject the notion that they need to be accountable to any norms other than their own. The list of dangers posed by employee blogs seem to indicate otherwise.
-- Right Wing News announced the winners of its Warblogger Awards this week.
-- A list of blogs about digital politics.
-- The Politico, a forthcoming political newspaper and Web site that has two former top Washington Post journalists as its leaders, is hiring away more talent from top Washington news organizations. The latest: Mike Allen of Time and Roger Simon of Bloomberg.
-- The Family Research Council will host its second annual Blogs4Life event Jan. 22. That also is the day of the annual March for Life, which occurs on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. ProLifeBlogs has more details about Blogs4Life.
-- Which bloggers "represent" Daily Kos? If you need to know, check the official list.
Posted by Danny at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)
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A pork-free diet for "King of Pork" Bobby Byrd? When pigs fly, you say? Well, it looks like the pigs in Congress, at least the Democratic ones, are sprouting wings and about to take flight.
Byrd, the longest-serving U.S. senator and incoming Appropriations Committee chairman, who built his reputation on the ability to funnel federal dollars to his beloved West Virginia (and mine), said he is willing to forgo that money for one year to help the country escape the "fiscal chaos" created by Republicans.
Gannett News Service reports that Byrd and incoming House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin plan to eliminate earmarks from the unfinished fiscal 2007 budget when Democrats retake control of Congress next year.
"Those dollars are now on hold," Byrd spokesman Tom Gavin said of millions that Byrd would have won for his state if Republicans had cleared the bills before leaving town.
The Hill reports that various Republican budget hawks praised the move, as did budget watchdog groups. But some of them remain skeptical about the chances for long-term budget reform and with good reason considering Congress' track record on pork-barrel spending.
Plenty of bloggers reacted to the news, as evidenced in the links at the blog-led Porkbusters campaign. Here's what Conservative Musings had to say: "My first thoughts were that I was watching the incoming liberal leaders acting as fiscal conservatives. All while having watched the outgoing conservative leaders acting as fiscal liberals. No doubt that I'm not the only one whose seen this."
Posted by Danny at 09:02 AM | Comments (0)
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Tom DeLay vs. Arianna Huffington
Make that Tom DeLay's blog-in, as the former House majority leader already has admitted that he doesn't write his own blog.
In any case, whoever started blogging at TomDeLay.com a couple of days ago already has picked a fight with Arianna Huffington, one of the top liberal bloggers.
At least DeLay and his stand-in are living up to the strategy DeLay oultlined in an interview yesterday with Right Wing News: "When was the last time the Republicans or conservatives attacked the left for their outrageous comments or outrageous activities? We don't attack. It's time to start attacking and be aggressive about what you believe and fighting for your beliefs."
Posted by Danny at 09:28 PM | Comments (1)
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As reported this morning in the "People Column" of National Journal's Technology Daily:
By Heather Greenfield
Two prominent Internet organizers from past presidential campaigns have joined DraftObama.org, a site aimed at getting Democratic Sen. Barack Obama into the 2008 race.
Zephyr Teachout and John Hlinko gained online reputations during the 2004 presidential campaign -- Teachout with Howard Dean and Hlinko as part of the movement to draft former Gen. Wesley Clark into the race. The Draft Obama group calls their additions "a significant boost to the rapidly expanding effort to draft Senator Barack Obama to run for president."
Teachout is the former director of Internet organizing for Dean, now the head of the Democratic National Committee. She is now the national director of the Sunlight Foundation, an online government watchdog group that opened its doors this year.
Hlinko founded DraftWesleyClark.com in 2003, helped raise $2 million in pledges for a Clark candidacy, engaged tens of thousands of supporters, and led to Clark's unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination. Previously, Hlinko helped lead the liberal activist group MoveOn.org when it was first launched in 1998. He now works with Grassroots Enterprise, a public affairs firm specializing in "buzz" marketing and Internet activism.
"What started off as a draft now feels like a gale-force storm," Hlinko said of the Obama movement. "Senator Obama has clearly captured the imagination of America, and thanks to the efforts of the Draft Obama movement, citizens across our country have the chance to send him a message, and tell him it's time to 'Barack the Vote.'"
"Zephyr Teachout and John Hlinko are the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford of netroots activism, and they are both an inspiration to me," said Ben Stanfield, a computer technician in Rockville, Md., who created the Web page for the draft campaign. "Having them both on board is just another sign of how strong our movement is and how much momentum a Barack Obama presidential candidacy would have."
Posted by Danny at 05:03 PM | Comments (0)
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The Word Of Mouth Marketing Association is meeting in Washington today and tomorrow, and the group offered to pay the way of select bloggers to cover the event.
Here is the invitation from the WOMMA Web site:
We're looking for a few great full-time bloggers to thoroughly cover the conference. Write everything you see and hear -- we won't get in your way, and yes, you can cross-post to your own blog. We'll pick up your hotel stay, but you're on your own to get to Washington, D.C.
Today's agenda also included what is becoming an increasingly standard discussion on blogging: "Are Bloggers Journalists: The Politics Of Blogging." The speakers were David Armon of PR Newswire, Henry Copeland of Blogads and Julia Hood of PRWeek.
The questions they were supposed to answer: When are bloggers acting as journalists? Should bloggers enjoy freedom of the press? When must bloggers demonstrate journalistic accountability? Do anonymous bloggers deserve press privileges, or is free speech protection conditional on disclosure?
Tomorrow's schedule includes a session on "blogger relations" that will tackle tthical guidelines for working with bloggers, the role of marketers in blog conversations, the appropriate approach to commenting on blogs, and contacting bloggers with story ideas. And another session will focus on how to create and use blogs to spread messages by word of mouth.
Coincidentally or not, the FTC yesterday announced during the week of the WOMMA event that companies using the Internet and other methods for paid word-of-mouth marketing must disclose those relationships. The Washington Post reported that the advertising approach can take any form of peer-to-peer communication, such as blog postings or MySpace pages for a movie character.
WOMMA lauded the FTC in a press release, noting that the agency appears to understand "the distinctions between buzz marketing, which is a legitimate marketing tactic and strategy, and stealth marketing, a practice we strongly condemn and oppose."
Posted by Danny at 04:07 PM | Comments (0)
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Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, once known as "The Hammer" for his tough leadership style, dipped his toe into the waters of the blogosphere last month at RedState and liked it so much that he decided to make a go of it on his own at TomDeLay.com.
"I did not fully realize the impact or potential of the blogosphere until very recently, when RedState gave me the opportunity to post some of my observations in the wake of the recent mid-term elections. ... This experience brought me to the immediate realization that I needed to become more directly involved in the blogosphere," the welcome entry said. "TomDeLay.com is the product of our latest effort to find new ways to connect, unite and organize conservatives from all over America into a real grassroots political force."
Today's edition of The Hill said DeLay is attempting to build a conservative counterpart to the liberal activist site MoveOn. He is calling the new outfit on the right the Grassroots Action and Information Network.
Ironically, MoveOn got its start during the impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton. DeLay was forced to resign his leadership post and eventually from Congress because of his alleged connections to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
"I have to say, the blog is the perfect place for him to keep everyone updated on all his legal travails," Paul Kiel said at TPMMuckraker. "Hopefully he'll realize that eventually. Who better to give us the skinny on the Jack Abramoff investigation than one of its main subjects?"
U.S. News & World Report also had a small blurb on DeLay's blog in "Washington Whispers." And bloggers from left to right are taking note.
Much of the commentary on the right has been self-congratulatory. Both La Shawn Barber's Corner and Wizbang, for instance, noted that they are on DeLay's 25-site blogroll.
The left has emphasized DeLay's early mishap with the blog: U.S. News noted that the site can filter unwanted Democratic comments, but that feature apparently didn't work too well yesterday, as noted at Daily Kos, Personal Democracy Forum and ThinkProgress.
Never fear, though, the comments were captured and have been republished at a blog that bills itself as "a tribute to the 75-minute period where Tom DeLay actually received feedback from America."
The Republican establishment appears to have embraced DeLay's foray into new media. He will be speaking tomorrow at a bloggers' briefing sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and Human Events Online.
But at least one Republican blog, the newcomer ElephantBiz, which is dedicated to "the business of Republican and conservative politics," lamented that DeLay is trying to make himself the face of the GOP blogosphere.
"As a long-time Washington insider, DeLay doesn't fit the profile of an outsider to lead the Republicans back from the wilderness," Bill Hobbs wrote. "Republicans don't need to be lead by the guy the Democrats hate the most; they need to be led by someone who, without compromising conservative principles, can gain the support of moderate Democrats the way that guy named Ronald Reagan did two decades ago."
UPDATE: Right Wing News cited the comments deleted from DeLay's blog as a good reason for why some Republican bloggers shun comment sections on their sites. "[W]hen a bunch of liberals [were] allowed to post uncensored comments on the blog of a hated political foe," John Hawkins wrote, "most of what they had to say was stupid, obscene and generally moronic."
Blog P.I. also tackled the commenting aspect of DeLay's blog and noted that DeLay -- shock! -- is not actually writing the entries himself.
Posted by Danny at 09:12 AM | Comments (1)
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Tech Daily Is Hiring An Assistant Editor
If you are interested in this job or know someone who might be, please e-mail a cover letter and resume to me at dglover@nationaljournal.com.
ASSISTANT EDITOR
National Journal's Technology Daily seeks a full-time assistant editor to produce its two daily editions, daily feature, special packages and other online content. Applicants must have a strong news, editing and online production background, at least one year of experience in daily news production under deadline pressure, and working knowledge of content management systems. Also must have practical familiarity with Congress and the federal government. This is a production job, not a reporting position.
Posted by Danny at 10:20 PM | Comments (0)
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What's a former judge to do when frustrated by perceived constitutional abuses? Blog about it, of course.
As of Saturday, that is what former Judge H. Lee Sarokin appears to be doing. His name and brief bio are attached to X-Judge, a new site based at Google's Blogger.com.
Sarokin's first and only entry so far focuses on the detainment of Jose Padilla as an "enemy combatant" in the war against terror. "This is my first entry in to the world of blog because I am astonished by the lack of outrage over the case of Jose Padilla," Sarokin wrote.
Here's more:
The administration has justified (and to large extent the public has accepted) wiretapping, these detentions, and possibly even torture, on the basis that these methods fight terrorism and confine terrorists. But what if they are not terrorists? Hundreds have been released after extended confinement without charges. They are all someone's husband, son, brother or father. For many such persons, the government has now suspended habeas corpus ... thus denying the means and opportunity for those detained to establish their innocence of any wrongdoing. American soldiers are dying to win freedom for the people of Iraq, while we are losing freedom for the people of America.
Sarokin even responded in the comments to a reader who needled him for initially misspelling "habeas" in "habeas corpus. You would think a former judge wouldn't make a mistake like that.
"Knew it but didn't know how to correct it," Sarokin replied. "Learning the blog methods. Please bear with me."
(Via The Right Coast and Instapundit)
Posted by Danny at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)
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LegiStorm took Capitol Hill by storm a few months ago, but the site that lets anyone see how fat the paychecks of congressional staffers are will be short-lived if Rep. Roger Wicker has his way.
Days before the 109th Congress ended, the Mississippi Republican filed a bill aimed at the heart of LegiStorm's content. It would have kept the salaries of individual staffers from being listed in disbursements by congressional offices. The line-item spending has long been available on paper, but LegiStorm put it into searchable format online. The initial traffic to the site earlier this fall was so thick that it was briefly unavailable.
Wicker's bill is moot now that Congress has adjourned. But he could reintroduce it when the next Congress begins in January, and Jock Friedly, the founder of LegiStorm is ready to fight for the transparency fostered by his site.
Nothing that LegiStorm "has been hailed by journalists and bloggers around the country as a valuable public resource," Friedly said: "Congressman Wicker would do better to focus on the needs of Hurricane Katrina victims in his state than to try to prevent the disclosure of how he and his colleagues spend taxpayer dollars. He is trying to prevent the dissemination of important public information."
Adam Kovacevich of Potomac Flacks is one of the bloggers who used the database. He compiled a list of salaries for Senate press secretaries and said it is "one of our most-trafficked posts ever."
(I also used LegiStorm to pinpoint the salary of David All, the "spokesblogger" for Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., for my story about paid campaign bloggers.)
Kovacevich warned that if Wicker chooses to resurrect his bill next year, he may live to regret it. "It's hard to win a battle of public opinion in the Internet age when you're on the anti-transparency side," Kovacevich said, noting the backlash that ensued when two senators put a procedural "hold" on legislation to create a federal budget database.
Posted by Danny at 08:51 PM | Comments (0)
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Vote Beltway Blogroll For 'Best Media Blog'
Voting in the 2006 Weblog Awards is now open. If you like what you see at Beltway Blogroll, please go here and cast your ballots in the "Best Media Blog" category.
The voting will continue through Dec. 15, and you can vote once each day until then. Thanks for your support.
Posted by Danny at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)
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RootsCamp in Washington last week sparked a flurry of blog commentary about the online and grassroots lessons learned from the 2006 campaign.
Joshua Levy of Personal Democracy Forum offered the most thorough coverage. He wrote three entries while at the event (here, here and here) and then penned a wrap-up piece. E.politics did a blurb on working with local bloggers. There is also discussion at the RootsCamp wiki.
-- Bloggers are big fans of transparency in government, with new ideas on that front emerging all the time. The two latest ideas: instant online polling in the Iowa presidential caucuses in 2008 and more openness in congressional committees. More ideas are being solicited and compiled by Steven Clift of DoWire.
-- Jon Henke, the blogger who briefly served as the new media coordinator to the re-election campaign of Sen. George Allen, R-Va., granted an interview to Matt Lewis. Click to the interview to see the "three major problems" that Henke said campaigns can expect if they do not engage blogs and other new media early.
-- Brian Keeler has started a series of posts at Daily Kos with some advice for bloggers who might want to become candidates some day. Keeler lost his race for New York state Senate this year. After the defeat, he started a blog called The Albany Project.
-- Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., held a conference call with bloggers to tout their "Cleanse the Code" effort to curtail tax regulations. Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters said he was "impressed by the effort made by Wyden and Craig but not necessarily with the direction they appear to be taking."
-- Chris Bowers of MyDD has found the filing rules of federal election law so demanding that the burden "is almost single-handedly changing my views on campaign finance reform."
-- MyDD this week hired liberal radio host/blogger Taylor Marsh to cover a nurses lockout in Las Vegas.
-- MyDD also has been paying Tim Tagaris the past few weeks to cover a congressional run-off race in Louisiana. Voters there go to the polls tomorrow to decide between two Democrats: netroots favorite Karen Carter and Rep. William Jefferson, who is being investigated for corruption.
-- A judge in Denver ordered an arrest warrant for a blogger in Oregon when she failed to appear in court to answer charges of derogatory Internet postings about another blogger.
-- The Rightometer, a daily roundup of news and commentary from the conservative blogosphere, has a new writer: Matt Naugle, who until recently was the campaign blogger for unsuccessful Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell.
-- Swivel is a handy online tool that lets users upload data and create graphs from them. I can see that becoming a popular site for both with-it wonks in Washington and political bloggers outside the Beltway. Andy Roth of The Club for Growth already has discovered the site and proclaimed it "The YouTube Of Graphs And Data."
-- PressThink interviewed former Washington Post political editor John Harris about his move to the forthcoming newspaper and Web site Capitol Leader.
-- And even avatars deserve to make the news now and then: "Not only have Reuters, Wired and CNET set up virtual bureaus within Second Life in order to bring outside content in and in-world news out, but a host of Web sites, blogs and even an in-world newspaper -- the Second Life Herald -- are now devoted exclusively to covering the lives of avatars."
Posted by Danny at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)
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Bloggers are free to speak their minds when they don't work for campaigns, but that's not always the case when they are on the payroll.
A case in point: You wouldn't have found Matt Stoller publicly criticizing Jon Corzine when he blogged for the New Jersey Democrat's gubernatorial campaign in 2005.
But yesterday, Stoller had this to say at MyDD about Corzine's "shameful" stance against legally recognizing gay marriage: "He's a good governor, with relatively high approval ratings, in a fairly liberal state. But as of yet, he's not a great governor because ... he doesn't follow his instincts. ... Jon Corzine has been doing the wrong thing on this clear issue of civil rights."
Much the same is true of "Jerome Armstrong, unshackled from the Warner campaign that wasn't." Now that he is no longer a consultant to former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, who until several weeks ago was presumed to be a 2008 presidential contender, Armstrong is free to rank the remaining potential candidates.
Here's a blog-related insight from the "blogfather": "[Wesley] Clark seems to have a real opportunity to become a netroots hero in the first half of 2007. Out of anyone in the field, Clark has the stature to lead the way for Democrats regarding Iraq."
Posted by Danny at 09:00 AM | Comments (11)
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Journalists vs. Bloggers Revisited
In July 2005, I spoke at a media/blog forum hosted by the Center for Media and Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation. The question of the day: "Are bloggers and journalists friends or enemies?"
I argued then that journalists are bloggers are enemies -- and that their adversarial relationship is good for the readers of both. I still think that's largely true, and the way that some bloggers reacted this week to my article on campaign bloggers in Sunday's New York Times is Exhibit A.
My critics were not content just to ridicule the thesis of my piece or bash me personally; they made me into the poster boy for all that's wrong with: a) the Times; b) the mainstream media as a whole; or c) both.
Such clashes aside, though, journalists and bloggers are on friendlier terms these days than they were a year-and-a-half ago. American Journalism Review has the evidence in its December/January issue:
The Fourth Estate has fallen fast and furiously in love with blogs, from news-driven ones about professional sports teams, real estate, crime, Hurricane Katrina, immigration, and local and national politics to zanier ones that dive deep into niche subcultures. Most are written by staffers, particularly sportswriters and columnists. ... Other papers have involved entire sections in online group diaries. ... The appetite for blogs is so great that some newsrooms also are turning to local bloggers, freelancers and special guests, or actively soliciting readers for proposals for new blogs.
That doesn't mean the culture clash between old and new media is over, though. To the contrary, the new relationships between have created new, and arguably deeper, headaches. AJR aptly describes it as the "inevitable clash of values between a newspaper, which has a journalistic reputation and brand name to protect, and a swiftly changing medium that has grown in power and prestige precisely because it has flouted many of journalism's traditional rules."
Among the numerous thorny issues: Should blogs rise to the same reporting and sourcing standards as content that appears in the print edition? What kind of tone and voice does a blog need to be effective -- just how snarky can it be? Where does libel law fit into the picture? Should reader comments or user-generated content like photographs be edited or monitored? Should anonymous or pseudonymous posts be allowed? What's the newsroom's policy about linking to other blogs? How do newsrooms handle staffers who have personal blogs?
All are good questions, and I'm curious to see how they will be answered, by both journalists and bloggers, in the coming years.
Posted by Danny at 09:38 AM | Comments (2)
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Spying technology in America is not on the cutting edge these days, but some experts think they know a way to change that, according to a story in Sunday's New York Times Magazine.
Their solution: adopt today's hottest information-sharing technologies, from blogs to collaborative "wiki" software to video-sharing tools like the kind that made YouTube famous. The question posed by the story: "Could blogs and wikis prevent the next 9/11?"
Here's an excerpt:
If analysts and agents were encouraged to post personal blogs and wikis on Intelink -- linking to their favorite analyst reports or the news bulletins they considered important -- then mob intelligence would take over. ... Pieces of intel would receive attention merely because other analysts found them interesting.This grassroots process ... suited the modern intelligence challenge of sifting through thousands of disparate clues: If a fact or observation struck a chord with enough analysts, it would snowball into popularity, no matter what their supervisors thought.
... At first glance, the idea might seem slightly crazy. Outfit the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. with blogs and wikis? In the civilian world, after all, these online tools have not always amassed the most stellar reputations. There are many valuable blogs and wikis, of course, but they are vastly outnumbered by ones that exist to compile useless ephemera, celebrity gossip and flatly unverifiable assertions.
The article notes the CIA's experimentation with a wiki called Intellipedia and a test blog to collect intelligence on avian influenza. It also mentions the Defense Department's decision to train analysts in blog software -- and why that effort failed to reach a tipping point. And it discusses the challenges of securing a "spy blogosphere."
Lots of good information. Read the whole thing. (Hat tip to Dan Gillmor at the Center for Citizen Media.)
Posted by Danny at 09:12 AM | Comments (1)
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Beltway Blogroll Is a Finalist for 'Best Media Blog'
The nominations for the 2006 Weblog Awards closed yesterday, and Beltway Blogroll made the finalists' cut for "Best Media Blog."
In the blogospheric spirit of full disclosure, I self-nominated the site. But don't let that deter you from voting for Beltway Blogroll. Balloting begins tomorrow.
Here are the other finalists for "Best Media Blog":
-- Tammy Bruce
-- Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN)
-- Eat The Press (The Huffington Post)
-- Media Blog (National Review Online)
-- Newsbusters
-- On Deadline (USA Today)
-- Pundit Review
-- The Raw Story
-- James Wolcott (Vanity Fair)
The other categories encompass the best conservative, liberal, centrist, military, law and individual blogs, among others.
No award will be given for "Best Campaign Blog" because the category was dropped. Why? "[A]fter checking the nomination, I wasn't convinced that we would have been able to field a good slate of finalists for the category."
That speaks volumes about how sorry most candidate blogs were this year. Maybe 2008 will yield more innovation, creativity and interactivity, and fewer Dairy Queen photos, flack-written blog entries and regurgitated press releases.
Posted by Danny at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)
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About a week ago, we published a story at Technology Daily that likely will interest bloggers. I intended to republish it here in full on Monday, but let's just say I have been otherwise occupied this week. So here's the story now for your mid-week reading pleasure:
GOP Defeat May Be Good For Conservative Bloggers
By Heather Greenfield
As Republicans prepare to be the minority voice in Congress, conservative bloggers are preparing to have a louder, farther-reaching voice online.
Few would argue with the notion that liberal blogs dominated the Web with more readers, more activity, more fundraising and more activism this past election cycle. "Certainly Democrat blogs have grown a lot more than the conservative blogs. I've been puzzled by that," said John Hawkins, a blogger for Right Wing News.
But like talk radio helped the conservative movement grow, he said, playing the role of the opposition voice will help conservative blogging grow now.
Jon Henke, a blogger for QandO who most recently worked for Sen. George Allen, R-Va., in his failed bid for re-election, said a blog praising leaders and defending the status quo is inherently less attractive than one criticizing it.
"Blog readers thrive on controversy," Henke said. "Having Democrats in power is manna from heaven."
Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters said that while he is not happy that Republicans lost control of Congress in the Nov. 7 election, "I don't think it's a great thing we'll be writing from the minority. I just don't think it's the end of the world."
He added, "We might see more growth in the conservative blogosphere because frustration needs an outlet."
Liberal bloggers agree. Chris Bowers of MyDD said liberal blogs are so popular because there are not enough popular liberal radio and cable shows that compare to the conservative media. That "makes the conservative blogosphere far less necessary for the conservative movement than the progressive blogosphere is for the progressive movement," he said. Conservative blogs "just are not needed as badly."
But now they could be, he said. "I think being in the opposition probably will help conservative bloggers somewhat since opposition media seems to generally do better than pro-government media in America."
James Joyner of Outside The Beltway is more skeptical that the changes inside the Beltway will change his role. He said he will have more fodder with the Democrats in power but said his publication also had "plenty of reason to criticize with the policy in Iraq and judicial appointments."
In a conference call with bloggers after the election, Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., said that when Republicans don't hold the gavel in committee rooms, it is important "to go outside Washington" for support. "I think this is going to be really good for the blog world," Kingston said.
Still, both left and right bloggers are concerned about how they change their voice to respond to the new political landscape. "It will be a new world for the progressive blogosphere, and we will have to see how we adapt," Bowers said.
Morrissey said he hopes conservatives become an opposition voice "without the same kind of tone they complained left blogs [adopted]" -- like "hoping for bad things to happen to make George Bush look bad."
Henke said having Democratic policy to analyze will require conservative bloggers to be "more wonky" than they have been in the past.
Posted by Danny at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)
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... surrounding the piece I wrote in yesterday's New York Times, here are more links and excerpts:
Entries by bloggers mentioned in my article
-- Julie Fanselow of Red State Rebels: "Unfortunately, the story ... made it sound like Larry Grant paid me to flack for him here on Red State Rebels. ... In fact, as most of you know, Larry paid me to write his Grassroots for Grant blog (on which I made nearly 500 posts) and to reach out to the national netroots. I also did some writing and media relations work on the Jerry Brady for Governor campaign early in 2006."
-- Jon Henke of QandO: "Sure, bloggers vigorously criticize politicians; after all, they have strong opinions about politics. But those are exactly the kind of people likely to get involved in politics. Voters criticize politicians too, but they still manage to vote for them. I also reject the idea that blogs' "outsider" status is really relevant. Any emerging field will necessarily consist of "outsiders" to the political establishment. "Objective" and "intellectually honest" may be selling points for bloggers, but I don't think "outsider" is a big one."
-- Aldon Hynes of Greater Democracy and Orient Lodge: "While there maybe bloggers whose activism is driven by contempt for the political establishment, there are many more bloggers driven by a love for our country and an interest in using new tools, both inside and outside of the political establishment to make our country even better. There are also a lot of bloggers that seek to bring about better journalism through the blogosphere, in part, perhaps, in reaction against the shoddy journalism they see in the mainstream media."
-- Aaron Silverstein of SquareNet (and Heading Left): "When politicians hire bloggers, they are not buying positive coverage from a seemingly unbiased source. Look at my writing about Bill Winter from before he and I had even met. I was a highly opinionated and partisan source, and made no secret of it. Bill didn't have to pay me if he wanted good coverage. He already had that from me .... Bill hired me to help him better hear our community, not to better speak to it."
-- Tim Tagaris of Swing State Project: "I'm curious as to what part of Ned Lamont's campaign was 'establishment' when he was down 60 points in the polls to a former VP nominee; when every single organ of party infrastructure was fighting tooth and nail against us; when I decided to leave the DNC (now that's establishment!) to join Ned and people literally said it would be 'difficult to hire' me in the future if I made that move."
(Editor's note: Tagaris said in his post that he e-mailed me to correct the payments to him that I cited in my initial story. I never received that e-mail. My only communication with Tagaris was in a telephone interview before the NationalJournal.com story ran. I corrected the payment numbers for Peter Daou after he contacted me and would have done the same for Tagaris had I received his e-mail.)
UPDATE: Tagaris e-mailed me yesterday to say that he earned $6,500 a month from Lamont in a job that ran from the end of April until Election Day.
Other entries
-- Daily Kos: "Your piece is shallow, you're reaching (badly), and making a Herculean stretch to find 'evidence' of some kind of malfeasance, when in fact what is happening is that people who write for and are enjoyed by large communities are getting (gasp) attention and in some cases support (monetary, infrastructural or other) for their efforts and for their communities. Horrors!"
-- Right Wing News: "Although I don't have a problem with bloggers working as consultants, I think Glover made a great point about blogging and consulting. If you're consulting for a politician, you're not free to say what you want to say as a blogger. ... That's why all bloggers who consult should either take a break from blogging while they consult or at least avoid writing about the race that they're consulting on in order to preserve their credibility."
-- World Wide Webers: "Glover's piece is horribly disingenuous. It's obvious that when you fill almost an entire page of the Sunday New York Times with a chart that details how much money specific bloggers were paid by political campaigns they advised, and then quotes positive comments those bloggers wrote about the politicians they worked for, the innuendo is clear: The opinions of these people who pretend to be independent are actually for sale to the highest bidder."
-- Writes Like She Talks: "The generalizations are overused and if anything, bloggers should be working hard to dispell them -- by the blogging they do as well as calling others out on it."
Posted by Danny at 09:13 AM | Comments (12)
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A Follow-Up Piece On Paid Bloggers
After MSNBC republished my piece on paid campaign bloggers, an editior at The New York Times asked me to write a follow-up piece for an op-ed chart.
That article and accompanying chart were published this morning.
The names and numbers in the piece are the same as in my previous piece, but the Times asked me to highlight some of the praiseworthy posts that the bloggers wrote about their employers or their critical comments about opponents. Check it out.
UPDATE: Lots of bloggers are peeved about my Times article. I wanted to make sure their voices are heard here, too, so here are the links: Eschaton, MyDD and Pandagon.
Others don't deserve to be heard because they don't know how to debate an issue with civility and dignity. But for the sake of being complete, I'll link to them as well: Roger Ailes, The News Blog and Whiskey Fire.
Ann Althouse had a different reaction: "Politicians: If you're worried a blogger might undercut your campaign, know that about $2,000 a month will not only cut off the criticism; it will buy you a stream of free ads, written by a free ad writer. What a bargain!"
UPDATE II: Micah Sifry of Personal Democracy Forum has a thoughtful response to my piece, including my answers to his questions. Though I disagree with Sifry, I commend his entry as the best rebuttal to date I've seen to my Times piece.
For the record, and as I stated in a comment below, I also agree with this point by Instapundit Glenn Reynolds: "I think this is fine if there's full disclosure, but you can form your own opinions."
UPDATE III: I'll link to more responses here as I find them. The latest is at Blue Jersey.
Others: Blog P.I., Digital Destiny, Done With Mirrors, Daniel W. Drezner, Marry In Massachusetts, Stubborn Facts, TalkLeft and Talking Points Memo.
UPDATE IV: This comment at TalkLeft is worth highlighting: "I think that this information is important. I want to know who is behind these new political powerbrokers. ... Transparency as a political principle doesn't stop at the gates of the blogosphere. Especially since established bloggers are now taking in and spending seven-figured sums of political money, meeting former presidents and being interviewed on CNN on Election Night. If I were a blogger, I wouldn't attack the messenger here but rather ask some serious questions about credibility."
In the same vein Jeff Jarvis said this at BuzzMachine: "We, of all people, must be very transparent about our roles and relationships, especially as we demand such transparency of media and politicians.
"It's not just about appearances. It's also about loyalties: Bloggers ... are taking on roles of leadership, and those who choose to follow deserve to know whether the bloggers to whom they link are more loyal to a cause or to a candidate and whether their loyalty stems from payment. So the Times charting these paid relationships is doing to us as we would do unto others. Golden Rule, I'd say."
Posted by Danny at 10:21 PM | Comments (59)
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AARP's Blogger-To-Be ... And More Beltway Blog News
The seniors group AARP is looking to hire a blogger, according to this blurb from the latest issue of National Journal magazine:
AARP is ramping up its media relations shop to be more nimble and proactive. New hires include Meghan O'Shaughnessy, Brian Marriott, Cecelia Prewett and Michelle Alvarez.O'Shaughnessy was most recently the communications director to Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash.; Marriott was a media relations special assistant at the Federal Communications Commission; and Prewett, a former communications director to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., comes from the state communications office of Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Alvarez, who will handle AARP's publications and entertainment strategies -- a new position -- was the manager of media relations at Hearst Magazines in New York City.
AARP's media relations shop will top out at 20 people once the hiring blitz is over. The association is also looking to bring on board a blogger, an associate director, and three more senior managers.
The Club For Growth, meanwhile, senses trouble brewing on the Social Security front, so it is reviving Social Security Choice, a blog launched in early 2005 that has been relatively dormant for months.
"At the time, it was a popular blog with a lot of traffic, but when the debate in Washington died down, the blog became somewhat dormant," club blogger Andy Roth noted this week. "Well, it looks like things are starting to heat up again, and the outlook is NOT good. Go check it out when you get a chance."
The National Association of Manufacturers also has some blogging news. It has a new weekly feature called the "Business Blog Roundup" at the ShopFloor blog. Michael Zak is writing it.
And there's one more addition to the Washington blog world this week: Rep. Paul Gillmor, R-Ohio, launched GillmorBlog.
Posted by Danny at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)
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