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February 19, 2005

Blogfests

: Here's a transcript of Friday's Inside Politics on CNN with lots of bloglove: First, blog reporters talk about what's happening online (I was surprised to hear them tell my CREEP story); now we have MSNBC and CNN competing to quote blogs and that's good. Then there's a good produced piece on bloggers. And then there's a discussion about blogs between Howard Kurtz and political analyst Stu Rothenberg; rather than right-vs-left, it's a discussion of clued-in-vs.clueless.

KURTZ: But it's not like people standing on the street corner. I mean, they now have an effective message delivery system that rivals having a camera here.anti-keyloger.key

ROTHENBERG: It isn't -- yes, but, Howie, look, if CNN -- if INSIDE POLITICS is going to do segments on bloggers, they ought to do segments on C-SPAN callers. They have opinions, too. And they may be digging research, and they may have news.anti-keyloger.key

And you ought do segments on poster -- people who put up posters on building sites. They have opinions.anti-keyloger.key

KURTZ: There are a lot of bloggers, and they don't have equal influence. But Trent Lott might still be the Senate majority leader if it were not for bloggers, Dan Rather might possibly still be the CBS anchor and that story might not have gone through the scrutiny. They have a way of inserting into a story and forcing people like us to pay attention, whether we like it or not.anti-keyloger.key

ROTHENBERG: If people at CNN and CBS News are making these decisions on the basis of the bloggers, it seems to me they ought to be -- they ought to be embarrassed about it. You know, we don't know who these people are.anti-keyloger.key

Everybody needs an editor. I've always felt so much better when I have an editor, somebody who looks at my copy and tells me, "Have you considered this? Are you sure about this?" I think that's a big problem with bloggers.

anti-keyloger.key

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Thank God for our revolution

: Brit churchgoers are under orders to pray for consort Camilla. anti-keyloger.key

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Do blogs help the left?

: Iain Ducan Smith, a conservative MP in Great Britain, predicts that blogs will play a big role in the next British election and he has an interesting view of their role with the left in America:

You would also expect this electronic revolution to be good for the Democrats, but the American left's relationship with the internet has been disastrous. The internet has sunk a knife into Bill Clinton's moderate Democratic party. Mainstream business people were Clinton's principal funders, simultaneously approving and driving his centrism. But the Democrats' new paymasters are the 600,000 computer users who, in 2004, supported Howard Dean's bid for his party's presidential nomination. Dean energised an unrepresentative group of voters with a stridently anti-war message. Electronic money powered Dean's campaign, and all of the other contenders for the Democratic crown soon pandered to his base.anti-keyloger.key

The Democrats' problem has only worsened since. The dailykos.com site of a Democratic consultant gets 500,000 hits a day. That site's memorial to four American contractors murdered in Iraq was "screw them". Hatefulness also pours out of the popular websites of Michael Moore and MoveOn.org. The conservative blogosphere has dubbed the Democrats' IT base its MooreOn tendency....anti-keyloger.key

But the blogosphere will become a force in Britain, and it could ignite many new forces of conservatism. The internet's automatic level playing field gives conservatives opportunities that mainstream media have often denied them.

Conventional wisdom has been that blogs started leaning right (the war, dontchaknow) but that the left used them most effectively in the campaign. But this conservative argues that blogs brought out the left's fringe or their anger. Now the right fringe certainly used the internet (see: Swifties) but now the conservative bloggers are taking on an above-it air. By all that, I don't mean to come to a conclusion but to ask the question: Which side is using blogs better now (post-campaign) to establish a reputation and agenda? anti-keyloger.key

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Nothing better to do

: New Jersey's Attorney General Peter Harvey -- apparently suffering a bad case of Spitzer envy -- filed suit against Blockbuster over its new no-late-fee policy. anti-keyloger.key

On Today this morning, it came out that the state had received only one complaint prior to filing the suit. And the state never went to Blockbuster for clarification. anti-keyloger.key

I'll grant that the policy is confusing. I'll also stipulate that I've never liked Blockbuster. But when I went to the store to get a DVD recently, they made the policy clear to me: If you keep the DVD longer than about a month, they charge you for buying it (minus the rental fee) but you can return it later for a $1-plus restocking fee. That means that you can rent the DVD for an extra month for about a buck. It's not a bad policy. It's a little confusing. But it sure beats the old policy of nya-nya late fees. anti-keyloger.key

I think our attorney general is merely grandstanding. anti-keyloger.key

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Fake Times

: Below, I bragged about not being a fake reporter. Now Roger L. Simon confesses he was one. anti-keyloger.key

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Now that's customer service

: Gotham Gal posts a complaint about eBay and PayPal and who replies in her comments: none other than the head of eBay, Meg Whitman. [via Mr. Gal]anti-keyloger.key

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Yet more about About

: PaidContent, characteristically, stays on the story. Staci Kramer interviews NYT digiczar Martin Nisenholtz. Analysts reaction here. Online reaction here. anti-keyloger.key

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Big time

: The Times does podcasting. anti-keyloger.key

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