I have been reading coverage of political blogs for some time and it’s simply nonsense.
The blogs are being covered as though they are newspapers or, worse, candidates. There is a he-said, he-said quality to the coverage that is completely false.
The problem with those who cover the blogosphere, like the National Journal, is a basic one of process.
Why? Because the IN in Internet, as I have written many times, stands for INtimate. Or at least, interactive.
The heart of the Internet is interaction. It’s not what I say, but what you say, what we say and do together.
This is especially vital in the political realm, where the whole idea is to change policy, to get your guys (and gals) elected, and to develop a point of view.
A few rules:
- Blogs without comments are not blogs.
- The Best Blogs are Always Human.
- The value of a community is in what its members write, not its leaders.
- What bubbles up is more important than what is passed down.
- Dollars, events and ideas are everything.
Let’s take these one at a time:
Blogs Without Comments are Not Blogs
There are a few good columns out there. They don’t feature comments. They feature a writer, or a speaker, giving you what they have in an entertaining and informative way.
But these are not blogs. Whether they’re being run by a politician or an individual who is channeling politicians, blogs which just give their readers orders are worthless.
The Best Blogs Are Always Human
Politicians have a very tough time with blogs. Politicians have a very tough time opening up. Anything they say gives their opponent an opening.
So most politicians’ blogs are either dry recitations of talking points or campaign schedules. Perhaps the worst is this, the Limbaugh wannabe ramblings of Rep. Jack Kingston. He’s very lucky to be in one of Congress’ safest seats, a virtual Atlanta exurb located 400 miles from town. If his district were at all competitive, a smart opponent would choke him on his own bile.
A politician is a brand, and their blog must excite people about the brand. This does not just mean covering the politician and/or the campaign. It means covering the constituents touched by the campaign. This is what the Dean bloggers did instinctively, something few have picked up on.
The value of a community is in what its members write, not its leaders.
I don’t know how many times this must be said. DailyKos is not a blog. It’s a community. Markos Moulitsas succeeded in building interaction, scaled to meet that interaction, and is mostly a technician. His blog is, today, the Democratic campaign headquarters, or at least the main office of its Democratic wing.
RedState, its chief rival on the right, runs the same software but is run all wrong. Diaries need to be promoted. Anyone who writes something good needs to have the people running the site getting them readers. If you’re just giving people the same old talking points, it’s easier to just watch FoxNews.
What bubbles up is more important than what is passed down.
This point is far more important today, with the video clip Web, than it ever was before. Building an audience for what’s good below you is one of the chief attributes of the best political blogs. Encouraging and nurturing creativity — others’ creativity — is vital. Finding stories and getting them to where they can do the most good, that’s the way you move numbers.
Dollars, events and ideas are everything
You measure the success of a blog by the number of dollars it raises for favored candidates and causes, by the number of events it causes to happen (even second-or-third hand), and the number of ideas it can pass on and bring to the table.
So how should blogs be covered?
- Get someone to events bloggers generate.
- Follow the money. Bring more coverage to bear on who’s raising what for whom. And who’s bringing how many volunteers to whom.
- Look at velocity. The speed with which a story moves from an individual to the collective, and out to the mainstream media, may mean more than the content of a story.
- Expand your horizons. Follow the links downward. Get to the source. Don’t write what Kos says. Find the person who wrote what Kos promoted, and find out how they got it.
