Last night, several of us local thin-skinned types got together for food and beverages at our collective second office, and talked about the latest “us vs. them” dust-up and Lack Of Getting It on the part of some traditional media folk. At one point Sara and I said something to one of the Democratic Party guys who’d shown up to do Jäger bombs about how our blogs were a little different because they’re not straight-up political blogs. And this is something I’ve talked about all over the place plenty of times before: how making sweeping statements about “blogs,” as if blogs are a monolith, is pointless because there are so many different kinds of blogs. There are blogs that are online news outlets, many of which break stories. There are blogs that are devoted to political analysis. There are blogs that are focused on a specific topic and definitely write with more of a “for the audience” perspective. And there are plenty of blogs (such as I would class my own) that exist primarily for the blogger, cover a wide variety of topics, but do not purport to be unbiased or “fair and balanced” or objective, etc. etc. etc. So when talking about credibility, citizen journalism, etc., I was thinking it only makes sense to apply those standards to the certain types of blogs that want them.
But then I thought, well, that’s too simplistic, too. With a lot of blogs, there’s not this stark dividing line between one type vs. another type. I would call my blog a “personal blog,” but I also have, arguably, “reported” on plenty of things. So have many other people who write the type of blog I do - and that makes sense, because why should writing about an issue, or posting news, etc., have to be sequestered from writing about one’s life? And really, i think when the two mingle, that’s when some of the most effective political activism can take place - or am I abusing the old adage “the personal is political” again? ;) I just think for a lot of people, putting the humanity into something helps them see why it’s important, and think of it in a more concrete way, and not just as an abstract “issue.”
And, blogs similar to mine have broken stories. Kyle Payne, anyone? And that’s just the most recent example that comes to mind. Look, too, at how bloggers of various stripes pulled together in an ad hoc media team during the Eliot Spitzer brouhaha. A few MSM outlets here and there started to realize that yes, we are the experts, and it didn’t matter what “type” of blog we had.
So are we all really that different? I think yes and no… as Facebook would say, it’s complicated.
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