Comments on: MSM finally picks up on DNC blogger credentialing issues re: race, gender

By: Jill Miller Zimon

Jill Miller Zimon — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:36:32 +0000

I completely agree – which is why, three years into it, and a few months into the nastiest period I’ve experienced ever, I’m still here.

By: David

David — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:32:38 +0000

There are plenty of rewarding experiences open to even the smallest blog. I know I’ll never forget talking to my congressman on a conference call while he was in Iraq. Even something like a link or email from a more established blog can be rewarding. That kind of support (as I’m sure you know) goes a long way.

There’s also the personal rewards like the knowledge and experience gained from blogging. When I first started blogging I would have had to stop and think if someone had asked me what congressional district I lived in, now I know off hand where almost all the districts are roughly located and who represents them.

By: Jill Miller Zimon

Jill Miller Zimon — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:14:40 +0000

Recruitment is good but also modeling the kind of environment people would either want to create or be involved in would seem to matter. In other words, how many people want to caretake other people who don’t want to play nice or at least play fair? That was one of the biggest problems on the PD Wide Open thing – those cleveland.com commenters were often totally out of control. But they would (most of them anyway, a few have migrated and hung around and I’m glad for that) never come to WLST – it’s not nasty enough.

Which is fine – but again, to recruit someone to be a blogger – they’d have to decide there’s some reward in it for them.

How do we highlight that? Rather than letting the MSM highlight all the negatives all the time. (cynical me speaking)

By: David

David — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:59:12 +0000

Well I certainly wouldn’t talk about sexism involving Hillary Clinton. It seems like every white male Obama supporter (including me, who gave up religion at a young age because a woman tried to convince me that men should lead churches since Eve ate the apple) has been accused of being a sexist at some point. There’s bound to be some people angry about that.

As for lack of diversity among the blogs, I think I can see where you’re coming from. I’ve felt the effects of the lack of regional diversity. Being the only real Democratic blog presence in SE Ohio was extremely frustrating at times. It felt like I had to be the entire regions online voice, even though many of my opinions aren’t in the majority here.

Still I don’t think it’s right to favor blogs based on gender, race, region, or any other diversity issues. Really the only solution I can see is just to start recruiting people from those groups to start blogging.

By: Jill

Jill — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:18:27 +0000

David, in the case of Ohio, I would agree that there’s a lack of diversity as far as white guys, few women, fewer minorities. I can’t speak about other states.

The fact is – what’s anyone doing about it? I wrote about and got slammed on the back channels because some folks thought that I was wrong. Your comment here indicates that you, at least, agree to some extent with my saying that there’s not much gender diversity.

I continue to maintain that Ohio lacks real gender diversity in the political blogs, but Lisa Renee and I have some plans to help that, I hope. Might take a while, but we’re thinking about action.

By: Jill

Jill — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:15:31 +0000

Ben – I didn’t apply or look at the process so I’m not the best to say, but at a minimum, they decided to offer the chance, they get to make the rules. The point has to do with applying the rules as the applicants expected. It sounds to me like different people had different expectations of how the rules would be applied.

If it were me, without a doubt, I’d have picked ODB, but I refer all kinds of groups to that blog, even when groups have come to me to be a state-oriented blog – I always say that Jeff’s is better for that because I’m quirky and niche-y.

By: David

David — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:11:26 +0000

I hate to say it, but the issue here isn’t with the DNC. It’s the lack of diversity among the blogs.

By: Ben K

Ben K — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:53:54 +0000

Here is a novel idea: Why dont they pick the best blogger in the state / the person they feel will do the best job in getting their message out, regardless of age or race?