Cross-posted on techPresident
Over the past few months, we’ve gotten tantalizing hints of the level of integration of online and offline organizing that the Obama campaign has achieved. For instance, of the $32 million that his campaign raised last month, $28 million came in online, and though the vast majority of donations were small, this also tells us that the Obama people must have pushed almost ALL of their fundraising online, even for the people who would normally send a large check.
But politics is about mobilizing people, not just about raising money, and a few weeks ago we got this vignette:
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February 3rd, 2008
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What IS the relationship of blogs and professional journalism? Are they friends? Enemies? Uneasy neighbors? The question comes up because last week e.politics was chatting with some visiting German journalists about blogs and the roles they’re playing in the American political and media world. Some of them had questions similar to common concerns of newspaper professionals in the States a couple of years ago, for instance how does a newspaper site integrate and market blogs, and how do sites handle objectionable content? Some seemed more rooted in the unique concerns of the German political world: what is the potential for far-right or other extremists to hijack mainstream media properties? And, should extreme political voices even HAVE a place in the online public discussion?
But one newspaper editor asked a blunt question that should be familiar to just about anyone trying to produce things online for a living: at what point will people will stop paying for content at all, because they can get what they want online for free? With newspapers watching subscription rates fall, classified ads move to the web and big advertisers disappear in a wave of retail consolidation, a fear of the web and of blogs is natural. But besides their obvious economic threat, bloggers are also usually amateurs, and in the hauteur of professional journalists toward their pajama-clad cousins, there is an echo of the disdain of a knight or samurai toward a low-born musketeer.
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February 3rd, 2008
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