Newshog’s Cernig MUST be psychic because he has just run this item:
This week’s challenge from the Unpaid Punditry Corps was –
“You are producing a political television program. And it’s your baby, all the way. You’re on CNBC, you have a guaranteed year of programming, and you have to select four bloggers who will serve on a thirty-minute-long daily roundtable discussion of recent events. Who do you pick, and why?”
I’ve given this a fair bit of thought and come up with then discarded several contenders….
The final panelists I have chosen are:
Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit. Glenn can actually think for himself when you take him out of the Republican echo chamber and he was featured in Reader’s Digest this month – you don’t get better name recognition than that.
Jesse Taylor from Pandagon. Jesse has wit, wisdom and a cut-the-verbiage attitude. He also blogs for Jerry Springer On The Radio and his experience there may come in handy.
Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice. A journalist and a centrist, Joe is perhaps the blogger I most admire for sheer professionalism. His would be the voice of consensus preventing the whole show degenerating into a slugfest.
Michelle Malkin of…umm…Michelle Malkin. It’s about rating.
Talk about being a sooth sayer:
He runs this just as TMV is going through materials to get ready to fly to San Jose, to moderate a panel at Berkeley’s Bay Area Law School Technology Conference on April 9. The topic will be this:
eDemocracy: The Role of Blogs and Online Activitists in 2004
What was the effect of blogs/online activists in the last election? Dean ran an internet campaign and the mainstream press discovered blogs, for example, but much of the discussion of this election really happening on the internet didn’t seem to materialize.
And although the panel isn’t the one our psychic friend chose, it will be high powered…and TMV will be the least impressive on it (although he is the only ADMITTED dummy who is a blogger):
Zack Rosen, Founder and Director, CivicSpace Labs
Zack Rosen is the founder and director of CivicSpace Labs, a non-profit tech shop building open-source civic engagement, participation, and organizing tools. He kicked off the “DeanSpace” volunteer open-source development project for the Dean campaign last year during his summer break from the University of Illinois. He then took a job at the Dean campaign head-quarters to work as a web-developer and technical volunteer coordinator. He was responsible for servicing the web-technology needs of the state campaign offices, constituency groups, and grassroots web developers. After the campaign ended he received funding to continue the project on and create CivicSpace Labs.
Aaron Swartz, Director of Technology, Roosevelt Institution
Aaron Swartz is a teenage writer and programmer. He co-authored the RSS 1.0 specification, now used by tens of thousands of websites to notify their readers of updates, and worked as metadata advisor to Creative Commons. In 2004 he began researching the influence of right-wing think tanks on politics and the media. His findings and other comments on law, politics, and technology are posted to his widely-read weblog. He is presently Director of Technology for the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank with branches at college campuses across the country.
Mike Krempasky
Mike Krempasky is the Political Director at American Target Advertising, a Virginia firm run by Richard Viguerie, the conservative strategist widely credited with inventing political direct mail and helping Ronald Reagan and numerous other Republicans get elected. He helps to build technology solutions for political and charitable clients as well as working with public policy groups to start and use blogging as an effective communication tool. He has helped to train conservative grassroots activists across the country as a part of the Leadership Institute (1999-2003). And more recently, he helped to co-found RedState.org – a conservative collaborative weblog that has transformed it into a 527 organization. Mike launched and continues to maintain the following blogs: Rathergate.com: Helped galvanize the public criticism of Dan Rather in the wake of the now-discredited 60 Minutes report on President Bush’s National Guard records. The site generated 3.1 million emails to CBS affiliates around the country in seven days. NotSpecter.com: A weblog focused on denying Arlen Specter the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. ConfirmThem.com: A collaborative weblog covering judicial nominations, including tools for activists to communicate with Congress. PaveFrance.com: Just for fun, a site dedicated to the notion that France would better serve the world as satellite parking for the British.
Dave Kopel, Independence Institute
Dave Kopel is Research Director of the Independence Institute, a think tank in Golden, Colorado. He is also an Associate Policy Analyst with the Cato Institute, and he writes a bi-weekly “On the Media” column for the Rocky Mountain News. Kopel graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School, and with Highest Honors from Brown University. In 1998-99, he served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at NYU Law School. Kopel is author of 10 books, including Antitrust After Microsoft. He has written over three dozen journal articles on issues including constitutional law, the media, the environment, and criminal justice. He is also a regular contributor to the Volokh Conspiracy weblog. His own website is www.davekopel.org.
FOOTNOTE: We are encouraging our superb Guest Bloggers to post Friday though Sunday. TMV will do a post on this panel discussion that’ll appear late Saturday afternoon or evening. He may post a bit on other topics, but will be out of pocket for big chunks of the next three days.
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.