Eric, Welcome to the Lake.

Jay, Thank you very much for Hosting today’s Book Salon.

thanks for having me

And thank you, Bev. Eric: Congratulations of a truly fine work of reporting, and thank you for bringing “the bloggers” alive as people– very interesting and very dedicated people. Here is the question I would like to start with. How does the finished book differ from the book you set out to write? Or, to put it another way, as you lived with the subject for the year or so it takes to write a book, what did you learn about the political blogosphere that surprised you?

Eric – super book – will be part of the history of the blogosphere. Welcome to Firedoglake!

that’s a good question. in a way the final book was in the form that i set to write. which was to use the backdrop of the 2008 campaign as a hook to tell the story about the rise of the lib blogosphere. explain who some of the major players were and the unlikely paths they took to leadership roles within the netroots. but i guess what surprised me as 2008 unfolded was the battle durign teh dem primary and how for long stretches the blogosphere, at least to me, seems somewhat unrecognizable to teh community i had been reading for years.

Jay, what was your biggest surprise in writing this book, the personalities or the development of the netroots media?

I think a lot of people who perhaps don’t know the blogosphere that well but talk about it a lot :-) figured that the Netroots would be part of the Obama machine once he got into office. Eric: how do you see the relationship between the two now? And, as part of that, did you ever find out why the Obama campaign was so cool and even indifferent to the Netroots during the 08 campaign?

Eric, I was just on the phone with a congressional staffer 5 minutes ago. He told me that almost all his colleagues hate bloggers and do whatever they can to keep their bosses away from them (us). Do you think getting your book out to lots of members of Congress (and perhaps the staffers and gate-keepers) would make them more open to bloggers and activists?

… a shout out to Prof. Jay Rosen for his work on Moyer’s show Friday night.

Sorry, that was for Eric.

last question first; no, never got a good answer why the obama campaign was so standoff-ish towards the blogs. the irony is that the cw is that obama was the ‘internet candidate.’ and he certainly conquered the internet. but the truth was that he left the subsection known as the blogosphere completely alone and did not engage w/ it directly. in fact, obama told reporters during the campaign that he didn’t read the blogs. i think clearly bloggers would have preferred if the obama campaign had embraced what they had built during the bush years and that they could have crossed the nov. finsih line together. but the obama team essentially built its own online infrastructure via mybarackobama.com

I find this stunning, yet wonder why.

quick point about the current relationship w/ bloggers and obama WH: i think the blogs are more than happy to play defense for WH when the right-wingers launch loony attacks. and the blogs will also cheer when the WH moves to the left. but the blogs have made pretty clear that they are not going to sit on their hands if they think the WH is moving away from a progressive agenda. so it’s nuanced relationship, i’d say.

Welcome Eric,

I was in college when I read “the Boys on the Bus” and we didn’t have much in the way of celebrity journalists then–nor cable TV for them to bloviate on–and I didn’t recognize that many of the names of the reporters and even the names I did recognize, were the names of strangers.

Reading you book, I was struck by how “connected” I felt to so many of the people you chronicled. It was like going through a family photo album.

Many of the bloggers “feel” like someone I know. maybe it’s because of the commenting feature. And, of course, some of the bloggers are actually people I do know.

There is an intimacy and sense of community in the blogosphere, that you don’t feel in the MSM, except in really small town/village papers.

How do you think that sense of “knowing each other” makes the political blog experience different than the political reporting experience–especially in terms of influencing public opinion?

Great intro, Jay. Great book, Eric. Thanks for your comprehensive treatment of our anonymous and not-so-anonymous Alaska bloggers!

I’ve donated a copy to the Wasilla Library. They could use more good books there.

I was wondering what you saw as the new normalcy in the blogosphere since things changed so rapidly last year? Also, do you think some of the cheerleading in the A list blogs will go down and there will be a return to the old role of holding pols accountable?

i’m a bit surprised to hear that description in 2009. sounds more like a Hill comment from 2004. perhaps the book would help to humanize the bloggers in the eyes of skeptical staffers on the Hill. again, seems a bit odd considering the track record that bloggers have assembled that pols would still be scared of them

Hi Eric:

I’m interested in your response to Howie Klein because I think that the people who are still the real power players are the lobbyists. To many congressional people they represent “real” people. Bloggers were/are dismissed until they had an impact in the money stream.

Did you find this attitude to be the case when talking to insiders?

Welcome both of you.

What, if anything, do you (either of you, really – this is Prof. Rosen’s area too) think the blogosphere brought to the table during the election that changed the narrative of the race?

in terms of “knowing each other” and the political blog experience, i think that has been crucial in creating a unique trust between bloggers and their readers. the relationship is so much interactive than traditaionl journalism. and bloggers will tell you how much they learn from their readers who provide all kinds of insights.

the flip side of that is that when fractures do occur within the community, or within a blog, it’s probably all the more painful to hash out.

Hey Eric-

I just want to say to those who haven’t read it, the important part of the book is the concentration on the loony right and their obsession over weird conspiracies during the run-up to the election. Coupled with the “two-headed baby ate my soul” Drudge headlines, this drove the mainstream conservative media to take their eye off the ball when they jumped on board the crazy train and gave middle America a glimpse of their core nuttiness.

Yep, absolutely. I never get calls back from Republican communications directors in congressional offices– never. And I rarely get a call returned from any of the conservative Dems either. Progressives and leadership always seem eager to engage but the ones who are playing defense… never. I get the feeling they’re afraid of people who don’t play by the Inside-the-Beltway rules.

Eric:

You discuss in the book the widespread sexism during last year’s primary campaign.

Do you think it was encouraged and/or directed by the Obama campaign, or do you think it was a totally independent phenomenon?

Julia: One of the simplest things had to do with attacks. In the past, supporters had hope that the press would fact check, see through, or somehow counter an unfair or fact-free attack, but this was often a vain hope because, as I’ve argued several times, the real ideology of our press is savviness and from a savvy point of view you don’t ask of an attack, “is it true?” but “will it work?” is it shrewd, etc. By fact checking, answering and ridiculing the right’s attacks, the blogosphere altered that dynamic.

How much do you think influence of the bloggers came from the ability of bloggers to pop up in the top of search engines?

I think about how people gather information. People can read what they usually read and then they can now do searches on topics and names. I try to explain to people the power of grass roots Search Engine Optimization and some of them get it, but I do think that it is under used and not understood. I’m not talking about Google bombs, but strategic linking tied to people’s names and topics that will help people see what we are talking about.

i think the new normalcy is stil shaking out. what the blogosphere is dealing with now is the fact that it had the unique luxury of being united by its opposition to bush and to the war and lots of other things, which can be very powerul in terms of passioinate growth. but now, the question is will the growth, will the influence, continue to expand with a dramatically different d.c. landscape. you’re right, 2008 was an extraordinary year for the bloggers and i’m not sure anyone knows yet it that represented a peak, or simply the beginning of a new phase.

When I started lurking at FDL, I didn’t realize how young the site was. Evidently, I was very early in my appreciation of this site.

Do you have a theory to explain how the blogosphere was able to zoom from zero to 60 in just a few short years?

Hi Eric.

I’m flattered that my small effort over at Glenn Greenwald’s made it into your book in the chapter on retroactive immunity. That was a very heady time for us in the netroots and even though we lost that chapter, we certainly bought a lot of time and made the bad guys expend a lot of extra effort.

While we’re still fighting on the retroactive immunity issue through cheering on the ACLU and other lawsuits, it seems to me that the netroots also is the main source of pushing for accountability on torture. Just today, we have Marcy and Glenn pushing back hard on torture spin going straight from Cheney’s crew to the front page of the New York Times.

Do you think the netroots has the power to force any real accountability for toruture?

going back to 2007, the blogs got two dem debates canceled that were supposed to be sponsored by fox news. i think that was sort of an early sign that the blogs were going to be able to change the campaign dialogue in new and important ways. (i.e. cast FNC as a fringe player.) i think right after sarah palin was picked as the vp choice, local bloggers in alaska did a great job, within minutes and hours, of educating people about who palin was and what her record looked like. (this, at a time when teh betlway press was mostly prasing her as a maverick pick.) the alaska bloggers sort formed their own reporting cooperative and ready shined an important light on palin’s alaska past.

thanks, i thought it was important to contrast the real growth and sophistication of the lib blogosphere with the sheer nuttyness that has become the conservative blogosphere. which, folks will recall, was heralded as a influential new medium in 2004 following the cbs memogate caper. but five years later right-wing blogs are still in search of their follow-up hit.

Hi Eric,

Loved the new book (and the personal history of the bloggers I’ve come to enjoy) as well as “Lapdogs”. How influential do you think the blogs have been to keeping the traditional press honest? Over the weekend, Marcy Wheeler and Glenn Greenwald have great pieces on the shoddy reporting at the NYT regarding the DOJ and Comey emails surrounding ‘enhanced interrogation’. Ironically, the NYT article comes out the same day Clark Hoyt (public editor) has to majorly walk back Eliz. Bumiller’s piece on Guantanamo detainees and recidivism.

I’d like to ask you about money in the equation. So many of us were involved and passionate and we did it with out wingnut welfare. The right is still funded by the Scaifes and other big money interests. They don’t have to go back to work in their real jobs but get to keep spewing talking points and writing Regency Press books that are bought by the case load by the AEI.

The insiders aren’t going to hire us, they figure we work for free for ‘the love” what can be done to get power players to see our effectiveness as something other than “Vinny in his bathrobe”?

My campaign against KSFO, right wing radio, cost them 28 advertisers millions of dollars, got Melaine Morgan fired and exposed the violent rhetoric in talk radio internationally. When I talked to the people in D.C. the response was, “So who do you know in D.C.? Which Congress man have you staffed? Good job. Keep up the good work.” Then of course I never heard back from them. I have real world credentials too, but I have always felt that after the brewhaha with Edward’s campaign and the two bloggers they hired the insiders decided to say away from those “controversal bloggers” and instead stuck with insiders.

the growth really was quite remarkable. as i noted in the book glenn greenwald’s readership literally went from 30 to 30,000 in one week. his case was quite unusually (key early links from TNR and atrios provided the rocket fuel), but still, as you say, it often really was 0 to 60. i think that there was just a huge outpouring among progressive during the bush years who were equally frustrated with this governance and w/ the press, and when they realized they could find their voice online, people just flocked to it.

Hi Eric:

Congrats on the book! I’ve been reading it here and there and got a good chunk covered on a flight to London on Friday night. Ironically, I’m giving a speech here about Obama’s use of new media in his election, so it’s been great to help supplement my speech.

One part of the book stood out to me because of my role in the gay rights movement. When he ignored the progressive community on immunity for the telecoms, he actually seemed to not take pain in it at all. In the end, he seemed to have gotten credit for how it handled it within the progressive community by way of addressing it in detail at MyBO.com.

What is your advice for the gay community in achieving equality given Obama’s complete silence on it so far. Shall we continue a piecemeal approach, expecting only simple things like hate crimes and employment-non discrimination, or should we pursue the bigger idea that the Constitution provides for equal protection under the law and that you either support that idea or you don’t?

Always easy questions from me, right? :-)

Lane

Great question Lane — eager to hear Eric’s answer!

This is more of a comment than a question, but I would love to hear Eric’s reaction– if has one. One of the things that people overlook about the blogosphere, which is commonly associated with opinion, is how much knowledge is can bring to bear, and quickly too. This goes all the way back to the Trent Lott episode in 2002. Lott spoke in praise of Strom Thurmond’s racist campaign of 1948; the chances that an ABC News producer in attendance would not know enough of the history to realize how newsworthy Lott’s remarks were… 50/50. But the chances that the interconnected blogosphere would not know: zero! This differential is something mainstream journalists and politicos still do not get, even though it has been amply demonstrated many times.

i would say that in general the blogs have revolutionized the way the press is critiqued in this country. prior to the blogs, that area was overseen by just a handful of mainstream writers as well as academics who wrote for quarterly journals. but what the blogs did was unleash a whole new generation of media critics who very quickly made plain that they often new more about the topics being covered than the jorunalists doing it, and could effortlessly point out the problems with the articles.

sadly, in terms of journalism, here we are roughly seven years later and the work being produced by the nyt, for instance, is no better. in fact, it’s probably worse than it was nearly a decade ago. obviously a lot of that has to do with the dramatic newsroom cutbacks and collapsing econ. model.

but as you mentioned, the bumiller article on gitma was a bit of a debacle. and bloggers and their readers knew that within hours of the piece being published. yet it took the newspaper what, ten days, to officially correct it and only, it seems, because the public editor addressed it?

The great value of Boehlert’s treatment is that he brings us the outsiders as people, and he shows just how far the Internet brought them, to the point where the Beltway insiders–operatives, candidates, fundraisers, journalists, TV hosts–simply could not ignore what the bloggers do.

That line in bold is the key, IMHO.

Those insiders who can’t get past the image of cheetos-eating blogger living in his parents’ basement desperately need to read this book.

I think you are on to something. I would like to know what Boehlert thinks of the continuing coolness between netroots and elected officials. What most surprises me is the distance between the Pennsylvania Dem party and Pennsylvania netroots. PA has one of the strongest blogospheres anywhere, yet the PA Dem establishment seems to have made zero effort to reach out or consult with them.

One of the other things I noticed is how many leaders in the progressive blogosphere are people living on “borrowed time,” folks who have survived cancer, violent physical assaults, or other near death experiences.

I find myself wondering if it is the sense of urgency that comes from realizing that you could be gone tomorrow that makes bloggers willing to give up more lucrative pursuits and to juggle blogging along with demanding day jobs, or in other words to sacrifice in order to blog, in a way MSM journalists are not called upon to do, that adds …..something….maybe Obama’s “fierce urgency of now” …to their work that might explain why the blogs have gained so much influence so fast.

It striking how so many progressive bloggers have a galvanizing moment they can point to.

Eric,

Thank you for being here. Hope to read your book soon.

I can think of one time when Obama did try to engage with the blogosphere at DailyKos. If memory this was before he was a declared candidate for President. The posters there absolutely lit into him, for some reason I can’t even remember now. They were disrespecful, and rude to say the least.

I remember thinking then, that his campaign people should tell him never to do it again.

the economics of the blogosphere, obviously, continue to be a real problem and you’re right, the left has never supported its infrastructure the way the right has with its cradle-to-grave approach to political/pundit welfare.

i know bloggers prize their independence, but there has to be a way for more of them to collect actual paychecks from orgs because the scary thing is that there is sort of a perfect storm scenario where you could see an awful lot of the lib blogosphere just going away because mostly all of it is simply propped up by passion.

I think that is what a lot of politicians would like, most of liberal blogosphere to just go away. Personally I think while some will get tired and drop out, others will come forward to take their place.

Spocko: I’ve heard this complaint many times. That means there is something to it. The sad and still largely secret truth of the matter is that wealthy progressive funders and liberal leaning foundations respect the mainstream professionalized media far too much to fund its alternative and nemesis, the liberal blogosphere. Deep down what they really want is a good write-up in the New York Times and a spot on Charlie Rose.

A bible verse comes to mine in thinking about the disregard DC has for bloggers:

A prophet has no honor in his own country.

Was that when Obama did an about face retroactive immunity for warantless surveillance?

Obama tends to listen to people even when he disagrees with them. I guess the question is, is he willing to debate them and reveal his reasons for the about face?

yeah, that trent lott episode was what really put atrios (duncan black) on the blog map. he published i think more than 50 items in one month. and what he did was use his academic background to bring some perspective to the debate about what trent lott said in 2002 about strom thurmond. what atrios did, by searching a library and finding an old dixcrat ballot from the `40’s was to illustrate that was thurmond once stood for, and the platform he ran on, was about defeating anti-lynching laws.

and the press was never going to bring up that kind of uncomfortable fact in the lott coverage. but atrios introduced it. and he did what his own readers, and countless blog readers elsewhere have done over the years; which is to share their own knowledge, hunches, research and knowledge.

interesting question …

Eric, were there others you were hoping to include but not able to get, either because of your own time frame/schedule or their desire for privacy?

Excellent point. At one time (before the Jeff Gannon episode) I was trying to convince Sam Seder to attend a press conference where he streamed the questions to us in real time while he was in attendance. Using a laptop in chat mode and or a blue tooth headset with a conference call we could do research and do some real time fact checking and bust some people with their own contradictory words.

The power of a group of us, with google and an internet link would be tough to beat.

During the pet food crisis in 2007 I was trying to advise journalists in real time during a press conference with the FDA about some facts that would have shown that the Chinese were lying and that the FDA was withholding information. The bloggers were all over that story, in fact, Dick Durbin praised us for the work we did. I helped organize and coordinate that effort and my goal was to help the offical journalists do their job by connecting them to people who did primary research and who were passionate about the issue.

that was one of the main reasons for writing the book; to try to move beyond this silly stereotype. to show who the people behind the blogs are and what’ they’ve accomplished. because as long as that silly stereotype persisis, it allows the trad press to dismiss the netroots.

hey lane, i’m going to assume you know a lot more about plotting political/social movements than i do;) but your point is sort of the $64 question for online progressive and how they want to engage the Obama WH. How aggressive to be; how confrontational. i will say that if the 2008 cmapaign showed us anything is that the obama team does not respond will (al all?)to the heavy-handed approach from the left. not that he/his team was called out that often during the campaign by the left. but it seems they work much more comfortably within the middle margins. whcih again, is why some bloggers were so frustrated during the campaign.

The irony is that Chevron has put more $ into netroots than liberal non-profits.

Here is another question I have for Eric. As far as I know she was never really a blogger, but would you agree that in style and her sensibility and her politics, Rachel Maddow is the first blogger to have her own TV show? Her show more closely resembles a group blog hosted by Maddow than a “Hardball” style show. What do you think?

it’s interesting that the burnout rate, at least this point, is far lower than i would have thought among the high-profile, just given the extraordinary amount of time and energy blogging can take. i’m sure there are some bloggers who are approacing their 10,000th or 15,000th post, which boggles the mind.

wealthy progressive funders and liberal leaning foundations respect the mainstream professionalized media far too much to fund its alternative and nemesis, the liberal blogosphere. Deep down what they really want is a good write-up in the New York Times

And above the fold! This might be an age thing (older rich people) or a credentials thing. There was the story recently in Korea about a blogger who made some excellent comments about the stock market and was spot on with his analysis. He got a lot of respect when they thought he was some Ph.D. or insider who worked in the industry. When they found out he was just some guy who was unemployed but very smart his work was discounted. His results were still the same, but because he didn’t have the correct background he was dismissed.
The use of “experts” who are hilariously wrong but have the right credentials is something that still infects the media. I just saw Henry Blodget quoted the other day and I was thinking, “Why was he called?”

i def. think that’s true about maddow. i interviewed her for the book before she got her msnbc show just because she seemed to be the one tv pundit who embodied the blogosphere approach. and since then she has described herself as a blogger w/ the tv show. so it’s good to have her on msnbc and i hope she continues to shine a spotlight on the work of bloggers and gives them proper credit.

Seconded.

Eric:

Do you think there is any truth to allegations of astroturfing in the blogosphere last year?

(Including allegations that the PUMA movement was a GOP astroturf operation)

Mudflats and AK Muckraker and the reporting on Palin’s Plagiarism of Gingrich seems to be the latest example of bloggers going where tradmed is too “slow” to go. Wonder if the Van Susterens wrote that speech for her? And how will Faux cover it?

well, i had to cut 35K words from the book before it was published, so there were many people that didn’t get mentioned in the book, and i felt badly because i know people feel passionately about the blogosphere and didn’t want to slight anyone. for instance, i had a whole chapter on jerome armstrong and markos and their rise in early 2002, but i had to cut it. speaking of lane hudson, i had wanted to include a long section about his unique online role in the mark foley story, but didn’t have space. in terms of the bloggers i did profile, i would have preferred to go into even more detail about people like john amato and digby etc. i couldn’t have found a more interesting cast of characters.

i don’t have any knowledge about astroturfing allegations. i assume the puma movement was legit and came from longtime dems.

I was sort of in on that story last week, in its first phase – before the plagiarism was detected. I’ve put up a Daily Kos diary on it this afternoon. In Alaska, right now, the mainstream press is so slimmed down, they can’t come even close to covering all the breaking political news, even if they wanted to. Some reporters wish they could. Most editors are afraid to cross Palin’s supporters.

that is sort of the ‘price’ the blogs pay for maintaining their independence; for never wanting to be an appedndage to the DNC. just ask howie klein how he’s viewed at the dccc. i don’t think the betlway or the dnc knows what do with a community that both helps elects dems and also tries to get sitting dems tossed out of congress; a community that will raise millions for dems and also try to hound a dem out of office. it’s just a bit too complicated/nuanced for party bosses.

Another thing I kept thinking about when reading Eric’s book–and you really should buy it and read it–is a phrase that journalists like to use: “political junkies.” I never trusted that phrase, even though I knew what they meant, because in a subtle way it suggested that people who want to know a lot about politics and who follow it very closely are a little… weird. Junkies, as against… citizens. In a sense the blogosphere is the revenge of the political junkies, and I think it shocks a lot of journalists how serious some people are about politics and how much they know. Just as it shocks them when people successful at one thing, like Howie Klein, turn out to have a deep passion for politics. And I could just feel throughout the book how much Eric loves this about the people of the blogosphere, as I do, and as Kos does in his book Taking on the System.

and that really highlights why the alaska bloggers played such a pivitol role in 2008; they were in the right place at the right time. they had this earthquake of a political story that just went off, beltway reporters who were two days away from arriving in the state, and bascially a single newspaper covering the entire state. the bloggers were able to spot obvious holes and start filling them with palin background information. if mccain had picked mitt romeny as his vp, i seriously doubt boston bloggers would have been as influential as the alaska bloggers were to the palin sotry, just because the media landscape was so wide open.

i think the press takes great comfort in dismissing bloggers as those political junkies you mention. and you’re right that phrase seems to conjure up the image of somebody who cannot ‘do’; somebody who knows a lot about the topic but can’t put that knowledge into motion. but the bloggers took that politcal junkie approach and not only made it interactive but expanded upon in.

as i was saying, early on the bloggers were probably best known for their media criticsm. but today that represents just a small portion of what they do. no they do original research/reporting, they raise money, they pick candidates. etc.

Beautifully put. Thank you.

speaking of dismissing, i dont’ believe there are any plans to review ‘bloggers’ in the nyt or the wash post, and of course howie kurtz has no interest in the book for his ‘reliable sources’ show, becuas why would a book about the intersection between politics and the press be of interest to his viewers?

not that i’m surprised by this.

Eric: I wonder of you might venture into a little comparative assessment for us, and describe what differences or identifying characteristics you see in the major liberal blog sites, which are also communities. What distinguishes them from one another? I mean. I think this might be interesting for our readers, who have their own comparisons. I’m talking about FDL, Kos, MyDD, Crooks and Liars, Open Left, Talk Left…

Has “On the Media” also decided to pass on your book?

How many train car loads of books has the Heritage Foundation purchased to get you to number one!
(oops, I meant George Soros, the rich bogey man of choice for the right).

i agree, althout i think that chord is being slowly cut and more wealthy progressives understand that the might nyt does not hold a patent on the truth.

yes, ‘on the media’ and npr have passed on the book, which as an author bums me out. but i think it’s more indicative of how the traditional press views the bloggers. i.e. go away now. please.

Junkies? I can quit any time I want.

*g*

But I share your reaction to the general picture in the book of people from a wide variety of backgrounds who brought their own skill sets to the blogosphere. What the folks profiled in the book share is a passion for changing the political landscape for the better; their reasons for getting into the mix and their approach to making that change happen are as different as the people involved.

But to pretend — as the TradMed and political insiders seem to do — that only the professionals care about politics is madness. And the stories in the book demonstrate, that’s a recipe for unemployment.

If you don’t believe that, just ask Rahm Emmanuel “How’s Al Wynn?”

Brooke Gladstone, Bob Garfield and John Keefe need to hear from us…

http://www.onthemedia.org/contact/email/form

I think the key is that you need to punch some hippies in the book, they love that. Maybe if you tell them you will talk about how you cut the “Great Orange Satan” out of your book because he was “overexposed” They would just eat that up.

Did you ever figure out why the Obama campaign ducked the opportunity to be part of the book?

I’m shocked that Kurtz, NPR and the like have passed on doing a segment. Do you think it has more to do with “Media Matters” and their sensitivity to your critiques against those same outlets rather than blogging?

i could tell you what i think distinguished different sites back when they started out because, frankly, i think those difference are less pronounced today as the sites mature.

FDL; clearly the libby trial and the 24/7 coverage the site devoted to the topic months (years?) before lawyers arrived in the court. also, jane hamsher early sort of shit kicking writing stye.

Kos; the diaries. markos seemed to be the first to really tap unto the extraordinary power of his readers and was smart enough to let them take ovr his site in a way; to let them start blogging within daily kos to it was no longer a marquee blogger writing for readers.

MyDD; home of the deaniacs. jerome famously wrote about the ‘netroots’ (william safire claims jerome was the first) back when dean was polling around 4% and MyDD became the online headquarters for a movement even before anyone new there was one.

C&L; obviouly amato’s video clips changed blogging. john felt very storng that if people could see what people were saying on fox news, not just read the transcripts, it would be that much more pwoerful. the funny thing is those first videos he got to work (pre-youtube rembmer) were about teh size of a postage stamp on his site, but it still srot of changed verything.

i did not. i contacted joe rospars, who oversaw obama’s internet operation, several times during the campaign to talk, but i could not get final approval from the campaign. joe indicated he’d be happy to talk after the camapaign, but again higher-ups wouldn’t okay it.

media matters might play a role in it. but i’m not shocked that kurtz, for instance, passed. as i noted in the book, it took the washpost until early 2009 to write its first-ever style section profile of a liberal blogger. i.e. washpost arrived safety to the story six years late.

I sort’ve wonder if that has anything to do with some of the press passing on the book too.

I don’t know if you caught it way up in the comments, but I’ve donated a copy to the Wasilla library.

I can just about guarantee you that the way they explain passing on your book, Eric, is that this is a liberal writer, a columnist for Media Matters, talking about the liberal blogosphere. Therefore it will be puffery; and they probably didn’t bother to read it.

good stuff. phil munger will be proud.

it’s certainly possible. possible that they’re looking for a reason not to read the book; not to cover it. but i suppose if S&S published a book about conservative blogger than it would be given proper attention. again, is’a bias towards liberal bloggers by the traditional press, which realizes to a certain degree that blogger are eating their lunch.

and btw, and as jay knows, the book is not puffery. in fact i’ve receieved lots of negative feedback from folks within the blogoshpere who do not like the book, or who do no like sectiosn of the book.

that’s me…

Eric, when I think about folks who straddle the TradMed/blogger line, Dan Froomkin comes to mind as one who has the background of many in the TradMed and a perch within it, but also as one who “gets” the whole insider/outside thing about blogs that most of his colleagues miss.

Any others that you see who might be in that same position?

Take a bow, ET!

I want to go back one of the mysteries remaining from Eric’s book, which I mentioned in my intro. Quoting Eric, “I’m still not sure why the debate from the spring of 2008 generated into what it did, and I’m not sure many bloggers today really want to look back and search for answers to that question.” You must have some theories about it, speculation perhaps? I’m not at all sure of the answer, either. Surely it’s true that it is easier to be united in opposition against Bush than divided about which candidate to support. But that only goes so far, and it doesn’t explain the kind of emotion unleashed by that battle.

I think it has something to do with the lingering effects of identity politics. Or maybe I will come up with something better. What do you think, Eric?

I think there are a lot of folks are still in denial about the wall of sexism and misogyny that got thrown up about a year ago. I was relieved to see you go into that because I still think a lot of people are either in denial mode or want every one just to move on. The stuff on Digby fascinated me.

froomkin does stand out for the simple reason that he doesn’t seem to have an open hostility towards the blogs, which is interseting. i will say though, that talking to younger reporters at some of the major newspapers and news outlets, they, not suprisingly, seem to be much more plugged into the internet and don’t view the blogs with an automatic suspicion. to them, the blogs seem to be another natural outlet. so perhaps over time people like froomkin won’t be the exception.

‘irrational loyalties,’ was how one blogger put it to me. and i think that’s about right. but yes, i’d suggest identity politics played a role and that we can now safely say that identity politics and the blogopshere do now mix well together. or at least they didn’t in 2008. the problem was that the stnadards that bloggers and their readers had sort of establsihed for themselves over the years were thrown out the window during the primary.

and i’ll give you one example; when druge trumpeted that story about how the clinton campaign was sening around photos of obama dressed in african garb from a trip he’d taken years earlier. drudge provided zero evidence to back up his claim, and no evidence has ever been produced to suggest the clinton campaign was behind the photo, but lots of lib bloggers, who in the past condemnced drudge and his anonymous scoops, went w/ the drudge story and pretended it was real.

i think that was an example of the blogosphere walking away from its usual standard in order to advance a narrow political agenda.

Really appreciate your take.

Spew alert, don’t have any liquids in your mouth when you read this.

A peek into FDL’s past, from October 2005 Jane’s

Judy, Pinch and a Boy Named Scooter

In a furious bout of post-prison housecleaning, Judy Miller just “happened” to find notes today from June 2003 when she spoke with Scooter Libby about Joe Wilson.

Of all the amazing discoveries. She’s the fucking Indiana Jones of dust bunnies, that one.[…]

Journalism and communications students are by far the most understanding, although some of the youngest among them think that blogging is way too “old school.” That’s my son’s attitude.

the interesting thing about digby’s role in 2008 was that just a few year previous to that most everbyody online thought she was a he, and when she came out as a middle-aged woman (the worse of both worlds, was how she jokingly put it), she noticed a marked change in the way people deal with her.

and last year when she continued to do her media criticism and went afte rthe press for being unfair to clinton, lots of readers took that as a clinton endorsement, which caused her endless grief.

Thanks all for a great comment stream. I’m 24 hours out from the Massachusetts Democratic State Convention and our successful bid to amend the state platform for some of our key issues. Notably, language that sets and absolute mandate for “atmospheric carbon dioxide at a maximum of 350 ppm” (see 350.org and Bill McKibben’s effort to raise this bar.

Chair John Walsh with the the help of bluemassgroup.com David Kravitz created an “official” blog massdemsplatform.blogspot.com for all members of the base to post their testimony, for consideration by the 62 member platform committee. We did that, and encouraged others. Lot’s of testimony.

March 31st, testimony process closed. Blog goes away. We complain to John Walsh. April 29th, the blog comes back, missing every single comment. In its place is the “official” new proposed platform. Which does not contain a single reference to our hard work drafting language for the new platform. A real bummer.

Our sentiment (the 100 plus people working with us through the Progressive Democrats of America) is that the blog was part and parcel a “sham pacification technique” used to mollify the base, a conspiracy between a state party chair and an otherwise sometimes respectable blogger. How could this be? Bloggers lean into and get inside the party and its the same old insider’s versus outsider’s game.

We didn’t flinch, but took on the whole MassDems.org apparatus, did the hard work of getting 250 delegate signatures to amend the proposed platform, and won on the floor vote. We got single-payer healthcare and CO2 at 350 ppm into the new platform. FYI, the old platform from 2005 already had single-payer healthcare in it. So the party elite consciously removed it from the new platform. Our friends at MasCare.org were so peeved, they submitted an “amendment” to go back to the old platform. It turned out that was a close vote, because the AFL-CIO and union people were equally peeved at what they had lost with the new platform. How could this be?

May be, with Obama’s clear influence, the party insiders are taking over the blogs. Watch out blogsphere.

As we come to the end of this Book Salon,

Eric, Thank you for stopping by the Lake and sending the afternoon discussing your new book and the history and influence of the blogosphere media.

Jay, Thank you very much for Hosting this very good Book Salon.

Everyone, if you haven’t bought Eric’s book yet, here is a link.

Thanks all.

blogging, by today’s standards, IS old school, which is pretty funny. and honestly i have no idea what it will look like one or two or three years from now. i mean, i finsiehd writing the book right after the nov. election when very few people were talking about twitter. and now it’s obviously become hugely popular and influential. how will that traditional blogging? i’m not smart enough to know.

thanks all.

thanks all, thanks Eric!

thank you so much!!!!!

Seconded

Wonderful book, Eric; I couldn’t put it down. As I read it, I felt a deep appreciation for the bloggers who articulate the failures of our government and offer strategies for addressing those failures.

I think Margaret Mead must have had bloggers in mind when she said that we should never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world.

You are changing the world, and I am deeply grateful.

Thank you!

Did he tell you what is “new school”?

thank you for all your hard work. there’s outside and then there’s outside the outside.

I’m sorry I missed this conversation – it looks like it was a lively one!

Thanks Eric – great book!

CTRL-F: “racism”

Nada.

Great discussion!