To those of you who email or say blogs are unimportant little pieces of ego (although a different word than “ego” is usually used) do we have news for you: THEY think we’re important — and they’re gearing up to try to recruit us in the upcoming Supreme Court fight(s):
Political groups preparing to battle over the first U.S. Supreme Court nomination in 11 years have a powerful new tool — Internet blogs — to spread information quickly and influence decision makers without relying on traditional media.
Web logs likely numbering in the dozens provide a way for the thoughtful and the passionate to publish their views. Politicians are taking notice as they prepare for the first high court nomination fight since the Internet became common in American households.
President Bush has yet to name a replacement for Sandra Day O’Connor, who announced her retirement last week. With the vacancy and eventual nominee comes intense debate over the court’s future.
“A key part of our strategy is reaching out to the Internet community,” said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
Blogs and similar forums have been around since the early days of the Internet, but only in the last year have they begun to have an impact on public opinion and lawmakers, congressional staffers and bloggers said.
Last year is when TMV became beloved on the Internet. Is that a coincidence?
A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project said that 7 percent of the 120 million U.S. adults who use the Internet have created a blog or web-based diary.
And all of them link to Instapundit. MORE:
Reid and other political leaders now hold conferences with bloggers in the same way they meet with traditional press.
“I think they are instrumental in getting information out and deconstructing spin,” said Eric Ueland, chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican.
“They are much defter and swifter than the mainstream media,” he said, adding that blogs are also “very clear in their philosophical and idealogical leanings.”
“Deft” and “swift” that is what always say. But that was on that shoplifting charge.
This piece is ACCURATE, by the way. In the past few months there has been a huge increase in people who email this site inquiring about TMV doing book reviews or even live interviews. Blogs are becoming an intergral part of the infoscene. Newsmakers, in particular, read them so the readership may not be as big as major newspapers or broadcast networks — but the readerships are influential.
The question is whether amid all of this blogs — of both sides — can maintain a healthy distance so they don’t become mere appendages of interest groups or political parties…even if a blogger is a Democrat or a Republican.
UPDATE: Pennywit offers his price list for interested parties.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.