DNC selects Ohio Daily Blog & Jeff Coryell for Dem Convention State Blogger Corps

Truly could not pick a better representative. From Ohio Daily Blog:

I’m proud (and rather overwhelmed) to report that I have been selected to be a part of the DemConvention State Blogger Corps, meaning that I will function as Ohio’s official blogger at the Democratic National Convention in Denver on August. I will be stationed on the convention floor, with the Ohio delegation, to represent our state in the DNC’s offical effort to bring new eyes, ears, and voices to the final stage of the Democratic nominating process.

Read the entire list of chosen blogs, state by state, here. Congrats to Tim at Crack the Bell (South Carolina). He came to Cleveland for the debate back in February and it was great fun exchanging emails with him, working to help him get here as the process for credentials unfolded. There are a few other names you’ll recognize, many you won’t.

I have no idea how many from Ohio applied, but according to Howard Dean’s statement, more than 400 applied for the 50 states and multiple territories. That week of the convention coincides with my kids’ first day of school and two out of three will be in new schools. I must say it’s been great reading the different blogger opportunities being offered through different networks I’m in (BlogHer and The Moderate Voice and The Media Bloggers Association included), but I’ll have to sit this one out.

Again, congratulations to Jeff. He works so damn hard - as do many of Ohio’s political bloggers, and I know from knowing him just how seriously he takes his charge. Thank you, Jeff.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:31 pm May 14th, 2008 in Government, Primary, Voting, Democrats, Elections, Ohio, Politics, Tech, Media, Blogging

Comments

14 Responses to “DNC selects Ohio Daily Blog & Jeff Coryell for Dem Convention State Blogger Corps”

1 Muffet on May 14th, 2008 3:27 pm

Jill,
Mazel tov!
Muffet
2 Wendy Hoke on May 14th, 2008 3:29 pm

Congrats to Jeff!
3 John Ettorre on May 14th, 2008 11:45 pm

He’ll certainly be a useful tool. But it escapes me why anyone would brag about being selected as an official blogger by a political party. They’re supposed to help choose candidates, not people who supposedly cover the proceedings. Unbelievable. One more black eye for this bunch’s independence, and a continuation of the whole sad chapter of accepting free tickets to party dinners.
4 Jill Miller Zimon on May 15th, 2008 7:34 am

Hi John - I hope you’re able to find a minute to click over to Jeff’s blog so you can leave this comment for him - I’ve forwarded it to him just in case because he’d be much better able to explain his thought process for his desire to go and acceptance of the offer.

I trust my gut and my gut trusts Jeff as being a left of center progressive whose observations and analysis I enjoy. I’m glad he’s going and that we’ll have him as a resource.

I fail to see how someone employed by a newspaper who is not allowed to express their political opinion and must have their work filtered by one or more editors is any more independent than Jeff, if at all.

It’s a prosumer era, John. And prosumers are pretty smart.
5 John Ettorre on May 15th, 2008 8:37 am

Sorry, this comment probably didn’t really belong on your blog, but you know how it is when you’re trolling the blogs around midnight, shortly before turning in. I wouldn’t have known about it otherwise, because his blog doesn’t happen to be on my reading list. Prosumers is a new term to me. Is it your coinage?
6 Jill Miller Zimon on May 15th, 2008 8:42 am

Hi John - no, I cannot take credit for the word prosumers. I think I first read about it on BFD and I’m pretty sure it was in use by George but maybe others. Last week, at the Collaboration Symposium at Case, apparently the word was being used a lot.

It’s the concept that each of us can be both producers and consumers now, particularly in regard to media and news. I don’t really use the word that much, but I think the concept of it helps frame the blending and blurring of previously much clearer boundaries, recognized by us all.
7 Jeff Coryell on May 15th, 2008 8:47 am

Responding to John Ettore -

You should know that I am no “tool.” When the Plain Dealer asked me to refrain from writing about Rep. Steve LaTourette as a condition of keeping my freelance blogging gig, I refused, and they fired me. Yes, fired. And you complained at that time about me calling it “fired,” accepting their charade that I had resigned. What I was demonstrating there was independence and integrity, not being a “tool.”

I’m a partisan, as you and everyone else knows. I’m an active participant in Democratic politics, campaigns, and even my local party and Democratic club, as disclosed on the “About” page on my blog. This is public knowledge and even integral to what I do as a blogger, where my mission is to generate public attention and support for good progressive candidates up and down the ticket. But that does not make me a blind accolyte or a shill for the party, and I am not. I criticize Democrats when they disappoint me. I slammed Dann over the deal to endorse Capri Cafaro as his successor in the Ohio Senate, example. I criticized Strickland for what I see as triangulating on some progressive issues. I criticized Sen. Teresa Fedor’s leadership of the Dem Caucus in the Ohio Senate. I have criticized various Democratic candidates for running poor campaign. And I called for Dann’s resignation (I did not, as Russo pretends, defend him.)

I’m a progressive so my values tend to align with the Democratic Party. But there are lots of places where I disagree with the party, and I’m militant about objecting to incompetence or corruption in the party. I’m sympathetic to the overall direction of the the party, and that’s understood. That doesn’t make me any different from the other progressive bloggers in the Blogger Corps, or who applied to be credentialed from Ohio.

I don’t think that my announcement of being credentialed to the Convention was “bragging,” although I’m proud of being selected and said so. If you want to dismiss it as bragging, that’s up to you. But there’s nothing pejorative about “official” in this context. It’s the party that’s doing the credentialing, that’s what makes it official. And there’s only one blogger in the Blogger Corps per state, that’s what I meant to connote by saying that I am the official blogger. There will be other bloggers on hand in the general blogger pool, and of course every blogger can write about what happens, whether they are in Denver or not, and readers can certainly take issue with what I write in comments to my blog.

I think you are deliberately blurring the distinction between partisan blogging and traditional journalism in order to slam me. It is not a black eye for me, a partisan as everyone knows, to be granted access to a party event, and the two occasions where I ate free rubber chicken at a party banquet certainly didn’t sway me in any way. If you only want to read coverage by people whom you regard as more independent than a partisan blogger, that’s fine. There will be thousands of traditional journalists at the convention for your reading pleasure. But they will be “official,” because they will all have been credentialed. And if they interview delegates on the floor, it’s because they will have been granted access, as I have. So if you really think those favors influence what folks have to say, you’d better take that into account.
8 John Ettorre on May 15th, 2008 9:03 am

Jeff, I accept you on your word. I admit that using the word “tool” was not just a tad harsh, but wrong on my part. So I apologize for that. I do know you to be a person of conscience, to the extent that I know you from your earlier writing, because I can’t pretend to know you as a person. Mostly, I’m persuaded by the calm, logical way you’ve just gone about convincing me of why I’m wrong. I stand convinced. Good luck at the convention, and now I will be reading occasionally.
9 Jill Miller Zimon on May 15th, 2008 9:05 am

Ooo, I love it when this happens.

Thank you both for taking the time.
10 John Ettorre on May 15th, 2008 9:06 am

You’re such a mom.
11 Jill Miller Zimon on May 15th, 2008 9:09 am

Ask me sometime about how many times I called and sent emails yesterday because I forgot to give my kid spending money for the annual Wash DC trip (story has a good ending - the principal of the school reportedly loaned him some).
12 Jeff Coryell on May 16th, 2008 11:29 am

John -

Thank you very, very much, not just for thinking this but for actually posting it, a notable thing to to. And I greatly appreciate your support.
13 John Ettorre on May 16th, 2008 11:56 am

We all have the duty to fess up when we’ve been wrong, and if we were wrong in a public fashion, the apology should also be public, just like a correction to a front page story rightly belongs on the front page. Enjoy your weekend, Jeff.
14 Is DNC blogger corps credentialing resulting in acceptable representation? | Writes Like She Talks on May 22nd, 2008 5:45 pm

[…] school, one entering middle school means no chance in hell I am going - didn’t even apply; Ohio Daily Blog is going), but supposedly they will credential […]