BOSTON – Those Kerry-Edwards buttons are all the rage, but the really hot accessory at the Democratic National Convention is a blog.
Dozens of delegates are writing for Web logs, promising to give the folks back home a personal take on the pomp and politics of the national convention, which begins today.
The blog-to-news ratio promises to be extremely high at this convention. In addition to the usual thousands of print, television and radio reporters, for the first time this year bloggers have been credentialed as journalists. That’s a lot of media coverage for a staged event with a predetermined outcome.
But delegate bloggers say they each have something different to contribute to the massive glut of information – an individual voice and an insider’s view.
“We want to make people feel kind of like they’re there,” said Greg Rodriguez, 38, a Washington state delegate from Seattle who is blogging the convention for the King County Democratic Party. “That’s really the goal, to provide some little tidbits of what the after-hour delegate parties or caucus meetings are like, stuff you wouldn’t see on TV. People are really starving for that, especially this year.”
They’ll blog about the food at the receptions, the July heat in Boston, the wonkish policy details debated over breakfast, and the gossip on the convention floor. In an age when the personal is political, delegates say blogs and political party conventions are a natural fit.
New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen, who is covering the convention for his blog, said delegate bloggers will fill a different role than either the traditional media or the nontraditional journalism of bloggers.
“You can’t apply to it the criteria of news or even punditry,” Rosen said. “One shouldn’t expect startling new information, because that’s not the point. The point is to share the experience.”
Many delegate bloggers are Howard Dean supporters who want to sustain their online political community. Dean set fund-raising records and attracted millions of followers through a new kind of Internet-based, grass-roots campaign. Now that Deaniacs are transferring their loyalty to Kerry, some say they want to keep that grass-roots effort going.
“The blog on the Dean Web site was incredible,” said blogger Ellen Meserow, a Washington delegate and former state technical director for the Dean campaign.
“We don’t want to lose the community, and we could lose it if we go back to the traditional methods of Democratic organizing,” Meserow said.
Delegates’ blogs
www.democraticgirl.com. Sarah Schacht, delegate from Oak Harbor
http://virtuallythere2004.org. Ellen Meserow, Washington state Credentials Committee
http://kcdems.blogspot.com. King County Democrats
www.democracyforvancouver.org/?qblog/4. Clark County Democrats
www.pnwflyfishing.blogspot. com
www.musselmanforamerica. com
www.cateread.com
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