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On blogging
Friday, Apr 4, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller * Illinois Issues magazine has a decent profile on blogs this month, including some flattering things about me. But what appears to be the central thesis is not necessarily accurate…
* There are all sorts of blogs out there. Partisan, ideological and issues-based blogs do often try to influence policy. Others, like mine, are information and opinion sources that don’t have an end in themselves except for that aforementioned core mission. I’m not sure, for instance, whether Illinois Issues’ influence on public policy could actually be measured bill by bill, and the same goes for this site. So, holding this blog to a different standard is not logical because passing or killing bills is not my stated goal. That being said, I know for a fact that several legislators participate in comments here on a regular basis and that many, many more read the posts and the comments. Pretty much everyone at the Statehouse is checking the blog on a regular basis throughout the day. All you have to do is watch how comments decline on afternoons when the GA adjourns for the week to get a good illustration of that phenomenon. But it’s very tough to take a story/discussion here or anywhere else in the media and point to it as the one deciding factor in how a particular piece of legislation fared in the House or Senate, even though there is an example in the II piece about a blog post at this site doing just that. * And this is goofy…
This is an outdated, hackneyed opinion. Good bloggers attract readers. For the most part, bad bloggers, like graffiti “artists,” attract scorn. Frankly, some journalism school-trained columnists I’ve read have far more shallow opinions than quite a few blogs that I frequent. And I’ll put many of my commenters up against a lot of them. Professor Meyer ought to expand his horizons before opening his mouth. Overall, though, I thought the article was extremely well written and provided some very good insights into how political blogs operate in Illinois. Go read the whole thing. …Adding… This guy Meyer really doesn’t like bloggers.
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- Frank Booth - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 2:44 pm:
Can anyone name a meaningful matter of public policy the traditional media has influenced?
No, newspapers attempt to keep making money off high school athletes does not count.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 2:47 pm:
LOL
- John - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 2:47 pm:
Citizen journalism is one of the most important elements of the Internet revolution. The Internet has given so many more people a voice. I continually find useful information in blogs that is often overlooked by mainstream media outlets. That’s not to say it’s all good, but not all professional journalism is good either.
- Little Egypt - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 2:56 pm:
All Professor Eric Meyer has to do is look at the SJ-R regarding the shenanigans of the Sewer Board and see what an “insidious effect” citizen journalism is having. That board is now opting to cut their salary in half and forego health insurance because of the huge public outcry. Long live citizen journalism. There’s virtually no one now who can fly under the radar.
- Kevin Fanning - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 2:57 pm:
I would definitely say that blogs have revolutionized the political process. In “The World is Flat” there is a story about how a DC blogger broke a story on Dan Rather’s segment regarding President Bush’s service in the National Guard. Much to their dismay, many large newspapers then had to quote this guy’s blog.
Aside from keeping the mainstream media in line, it also gives citizens a greater voice. I can personally attest to the value of this blog in the statehouse. Periodically I’m asked my opinion by a legislator on various comments posted. I only wish more people would read blogs like these. Maybe then we would get something done in Springfield?
- Kiyoshi Martinez - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 3:00 pm:
I actually took Graphics and Design with Eric Meyer at UIUC during undergrad and he was one of the professors I actually liked. I didn’t exactly agree with his opinions on everything — as that example above illustrates — but then again I never saw eye-to-eye with any of my professors on everything.
But look at his point and disregard the word “warns.” I find his statement hard to disagree with. Blogs do have an underground effect on changing the way the media operates now. There are plenty of examples of stories that started making their rounds through the blogosphere before being picked up by the traditional media. Once YouTube was thrown into the mix, the “viral” effect became magnified.
I wouldn’t argue that all citizen journalism and blogging is insidious. That might be the intent for some bloggers and it can have that desired effect in certain cases, but it’s certainly not the norm.
- Rob_N - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 3:09 pm:
“can have an insidious, even viral effect on public knowledge”
The 10-30% of Americans who believe outright lies would likely agree with that statement.
Everything from Sen. Obama being “Muslim” to Rev. Wright being “a supremacist” to Iraq helped “plan 9/11″ is false, but thanks to viral emails and partisan blogs that perpetuate the misinformation, the fallacies persist as “truth”.
Psychologists have studied this and found that often people who are inclined to believe something (no matter what its veracity) will in fact believe it to be true if they do not hear the actual truth first.
- so-called "Austin Mayor" - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 3:12 pm:
If I had a kid studying journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I would encourage him to a) change his major, or b) transfer.
– SCAM
so-called “Austin Mayor”
http://austinmayor.blogspot.com
- dan l - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 3:26 pm:
Honestly: when the criticism amounts to “questioning the life expectancy of blogging” and “the internet is a mass audience stall wall where bloggers are graffiti artists” I have to wonder how in tune these people are with technology to begin with or if they’re the kind of people who still call their twenty something kids to find out how they can email a picture.
Look, like it or not: as the demographic of “typical readers” goes from “young and middle-aged professionals in nearly equal numbers of males and females” to “every politically engaged person in the country”, we’re going to find that “traditional campaign methods of advertising, direct mailers and phone calls” fall increasingly by the way side.
And it’s almost funnier, given the triumph that is the Obama web site that somebody would seriously imply that there “is no revolution”.
- Bookworm - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 3:27 pm:
I have to agree with Peoria Pundit that as traditional print and broadcast media get slashed to the bone with staff and budget cuts, blogs may soon become the only place left to find anything resembling real investigative reporting.
While it’s true you can’t always believe everything you read online, you could never believe “everything” you ever read in print or saw on TV either. The quality, political leanings and reputation of whatever paper, magazine, program, etc. you were reading or watching had to be taken into account. Same with blogs.
- dan l - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 3:29 pm:
Wait:
…….”hypertext words”? No way! Do I have download those from somewhere?
- Levois - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 3:31 pm:
I’m disappointed that they didn’t mention citizen blogs. That’s as important as any blog written by a professional political writer or reporter. Citizens have ideas and want influence in the political process. Assuming they write anything substantial about a particular issue.
- Ghost - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 3:32 pm:
Wait, I have a cold, does that mean I caught it from Richs blog?
- dan l - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 3:38 pm:
I’m having too much fun with this.
…..Because some day all the blogs will stop existing and we’ll all go back to message boards where one person will write a post and a bunch of other people will comment? HaHa! Blogging will be dead!!!
Or, will we all just get tired of talking politics?
- Bill - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 3:44 pm:
As much as I enjoy blogging, I never thought of it as writing on a bathroom wall. Now, I like it even more!
Thanks, Eric.
- Douglas M. - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 3:48 pm:
In the same vein that sites like itunes, Napster, and Limewire wrecked the traditional music industry which stood idly by while it was happening, blogging is becoming as, if not more, important than traditional print media due to the on-demand access to news. The more people are informed, the better off we are.
- jaundiced eye - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 3:49 pm:
I find the Illinois Issues “measurement” question of blogs/comments leading to legislative action almost archaic — why does discussion have to be measured by legislative action or results? God knows that doesn’t seem to happen at the legislative level, at least in Illinois at the moment. What happened to civic discourse, discussion and other exchanges of ideas as ways of shaping change that may not happen in any immediate sense — and certainly not in terms of legislation. And let’s tell the truth: How much pressure is put on major print writers and columnists to create and maintain blogs as a means of cross-marketing the printed product to the public?
- dan l - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 3:55 pm:
Ahhh yes. The music industry is struggling these days.
- Reddbyrd - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 4:22 pm:
Sounds like the good Prof probably spends his weekends spinning the 45s too.
“Journalists” don’t like blogs just like they did not dealing with Sneed and Inc — back when someone read that stuff.
Folks should learn go with the flow.
- VanillaMan - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 4:39 pm:
It is a nice article. Naturally, it makes you look appropriately professional. So it discovered some truths, didn’t it?
What is more interesting, and I can definately see a dissertation in this, is how regular bloggers evolve. It has been very interesting to me to watch bloggers become regulars. Newbies, even your interns themselves, change over the course of blogging here.
Unlike drive-by bloggers, the folks I enjoy at Capitol Fax Blog are those who have established a style and voice. When I first began, I felt far more anonymous. This allowed me to practice at everyone’s expense. I’d bloviate and fire off a colorful comment, then discover the responses. After a few years, I’ve learned how to blog better so that I can add to a conversation, or make readers laugh, or show support. I’ve learned how to better focus on the thread discussion. And I never get frustrated when one of my comments is deleted by you. Like a good editor, I depend on your work at the moderator. It is your blog, after all.
In conclusion, I believe that this article should have better examined and explained the differences between graffiti and blogging. It misses an important facet of the communication found here. Quoting a journalism professor probably used to work as some kind of valid opinion in the last century, but in today’s new media, he is just another blogger like the rest of us.
- Anon - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 4:42 pm:
If you look at what Talking Points Memo did on the national level in opposition to President Bush’s plan to revamp social security, that is a very clear, very real example of a successful blogging initiative on a public policy issue. So I reject the premise that there’s no track record, when there very clearly is one.
- dan l - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 4:48 pm:
Vanilla man was all about:
Or better yet, first qualify that the difference matters. Some political organizations have made excellent use of echo-chamber misinformation spreaders in “traditional” media for years. And nobody is out there saying “print is useless because a particular columnist is a tool”.
- True - Friday, Apr 4, 08 @ 5:10 pm:
Honest assessment, a lot of people I know are dumping the tribune, and just read the new york times and washington post online since the content is better. There’s nothing in the swamp you can’t get elsewhere, they have zippo original coverage in the paper and I much prefer some of the sane local bloggers who follow the pols and policies passionately and have unique perspectives.
I’m sure they’ll adjust, but for now, I can get my info anywhere and a lot of blogs like this are prefered.
- Aaron Slick - Saturday, Apr 5, 08 @ 7:50 am:
I have found the writers on blog sites (especially this one) to be very informative. I go into the blog site knowing that the writers are passionate in their beliefs. I like that part! With traditional media, you read it believing that the reporters are unbiased (which is sometimes not I case). With this blog site, I know that the contributors are usually biased. I have found certain contributors earning my respect over time with their thoughtful and intellectually stimulating comments. I must admit that often times my opinion on an issue or event has been changed after reading Capitol Fax Blog. And, for that, I say “Thank you for making me a more informed citizen and voter.”
Pingback Blogs: Meeting an old friend for the first time : Peoria Pundit - Saturday, Apr 5, 08 @ 1:04 pm:
[…] Rich had some minor quibbles as well, especially the quotes from some professor who apparently thinks only the print media is capable of ethical behavior. Whatever, dude. […]