Blogs United wrapup

It has been two years since bloggers from around the Commonwealth gathered. This past Saturday, Blogs United held another conference. The number of bloggers was much smaller than in years past but the number of non-bloggers in attendance was larger. Most of the non-bloggers in attendance held positions within the Republican Party. Add to that the presence – later in the day – of the various candidates for office, most of them Republican, and one could get the sense that this event has become less bipartisan.

That the room tilted to the right wasn’t the fault of BU. Holding it after the election sounded like a good idea – that is, until we finished the election 😦 I can only assume that the election results had a dappening effect on the participation of Democratic Party officials: while representatives of the House and Senate Republican caucuses were in attendance and participated, no one from their counterparts on the Democratic side was able to attend.

The highlight of the day, in my opinion, was the media panel. Participating were four members of the mainstream media who also blog: Anita Kumar of The Washington Post, Ryan Nobles of NBC 12 (Richmond), Kimball Payne of The Daily Press, and Julian Walker of The Virginian-Pilot. With the exception of Kumar, who blogs almost full time, the rest of the panel has to hold down a “day job,” in addition to their blogging duties. They each spoke about how they came to blogging and what they are trying to accomplish. The juggling of responsibilities between their main jobs and blogging is something to which I am sure most bloggers can relate.

A couple of big issues came out of the panel. The first was the process by which content appears on their respective blogs. While the panelists all work for media outlets, there is no real oversight of their content. Kumar did say that she uses editors for her content, but that is mainly to make sure she doesn’t misspell something. Payne had us laughing about the fact that his editor didn’t tell him for ten months that he could post directly to the blog without waiting for the articles to be approved. Nobles’ blog was his own creation to start with. And it was Walker who suggested the Pilot have a political blog in the first place.

The corporate part of things showed up in the technology end of their blogging. Nobles, for example, uses the free WordPress.com to host his site but his station wanted it on the station site so they embedded it there. Kumar said that getting things on the site changed – such as correcting a bad link or adding a blog to the blogroll – takes forever, because it has to go through another department. Neither of the blogs of Walker or Payne have a blogroll, something pretty standard on standalone blogs.

The second big issue that came out was about the tone of the blog posts. Journalistic standards of reporting generally require that the information be as unbiased as possible. By its very nature, blogging is opinion. The panel all said that while they may inject some personality into their posts, they never cross the line into opinion. My reading of the blogs finds this to be mostly true, although I’m not sure that a casual reader would be able to make the distinction. Of the four, Walker probably injects the least of his personality into his posts and Payne the most.

At the end of the day, the role of MSM blogs is far different from that of standalone bloggers. There is room for both and while there is some crossover in terms of information provided, they are not interchangeable.

I missed almost all of the next segment, which featured Rep. Rob Wittman (R-01).

The big part of the afternoon was a parade of candidates.  The two Democrats looking to unseat Wittman were both there: Scott Robinson and Crystall Ball. Also in attendance were the gaggle of Republican candidates looking to unseat Glenn Nye: Scott Rigell, Ben Loyola, Ken Golden, and Scott Taylor. Coby Dillard, who is exploring a run against Democrat Bobby Scott, was in attendance, along with one of the many candidates seeking to unseat Tom Perriello in the 5th, Michael McPadden.

There is a plan underway to have another conference next year. If you want to participate in the planning, or just stay up to date on what’s going on, visit the Blogs United website.

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Posts around the blogosphere on the conference (will update as they become available):

New Dominion Project
Bearing Drift
Pilot on Politics
Virginia Politics
novatownhall (several posts)