e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Somewhere Between Obvious and Odd: The Politico on Befriending Bloggers

[Update: The Politico's James Joyner responds.]

Guest article! My good friend and colleague Burt Edwards has a bone to pick with a recent Politico article, and he’s not afraid to do it in public for your amusement. Be warned — if you’re going to portray your publication as being for political insiders, you’d better write something other than the bland and blatantly obvious. Take it away, Burt:

I hate to pick on Politico.com, but I found their recent article on Netiquette: How to Befriend a Blogger a bit…lacking. I give them kudos for putting some thoughts out there on a subject that has drawn much debate in the public affairs community as of late; however, I found the seven listed “tips to make sure you’re reaching bloggers most efficiently” was walking the line between obvious and odd — “odd,” as in, “disturbingly oblivious to what I think most of us would consider standard good public affairs practices”.

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3 comments May 14th, 2007 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

The Drudge-Industrial Complex: Using the Internet to Spread Political Dirt and Distraction

Michael Scherer has an excellent article in Salon today on a significant way that the Internet is altering the pace and direction of political campaigns, while also subtly changing the role of political journalists, not for the better. To boil it down, the growth of blogs and alternative journalistic outlets (Drudge Report, etc.) has given political opposition researchers a huge number of new avenues to distribute dirt or distracting information about a rival while still maintaining their own anonymity. In the process, political reporters risk losing their investigative role in favor of being channels for stories that campaigns are driving behind the scenes. Some excerpts:

Though reporters, and blogs like the Drudge Report, take credit for scoops, the news of the day is more often than not produced by the invisible hand of one campaign or another.
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Add comment May 14th, 2007 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us