Who Wants to be WFB?
The Politico claims that those of us in the conservative blogosphere aren’t doing enough “shoe-leather reporting”. Jonathan Martin surmises that we’re all a bunch of Bill Buckley and George F. Will wanna-be’s.
They may have a point. However, they overlook a few things. As Jim Hoeft points out, most of us have real jobs.
We’re not getting paid by lefty foundations or funded by people like George Soros. The Huffington Post isn’t making any money, but Arianna’s rich, lefty friends don’t seem to mind picking up the tab. It’s venture capital as a tax write-off.
In my case, I limit my so-called shoe leather journalism to local issues. Why? Because it’s easier to run down leads and information in your own town than it is tracking down folks on their cell phones around the country. In the time I have to spare, I’ll stack my fact-gathering abilities against anyone on the Daily Times city desk. All day, everyday.
Sphere: Related Content
In the last year, it seems that the number of substantive reports and comments have significantly diminished, compared to the number of raving lunatic partisan rants on Virginia blogs. Too many bloggers have gone over to the dark side and are now political hacks, or simply just publish links to main stream media. Particularly annoying are posts that say, “You should see this…” with a link to some video, but that do not bother to type in a synopsis so that a reader could see a reason to make the jump to the linked site. The value-added feature of blogs is original, unfiltered content; not links to crap that is already all over YouTube or the MSM. Reading recitations of campaign talking points, without any new information or insight, is of no value.
Like my Marine Dill Instructor said, “Opinions are like assholes and everybody has one.”
When I post comments, I try to relate what I have observed or share a substantial amount of data that I have read somewhere else, with the purpose of helping others gain new insights, or to stimulate constructive dialog. For example, I have learned a great deal from the constructive feedback offered by thoughtful citizens who participate on these blogs. Also, every once in a while, I share a bit of satire, but only rarely.
These blogs will only be seen as a useful source of information if they contain original content and fresh, less filtered commentary. With so many of the politically funded blogs popping-up, many of us are simply tuning out those blogs that are obviously political shills, like RK.
The other good reason to ignore a particular blog is when the operator blocks all commentary that doesn’t suit his/her political agenda, or requires citizens to “log-in” or get an account, in order to comment. I entirely support the idea that a process be in place so that persons making comments can identify themselves, preferably so that they stand by what they write, with their true identities. Those who post under pseudonyms or anonymously, generally lack the courage of their convictions and such posts should be limited to comments of substance that perhaps say what others may be thinking, but no one has yet had the courage to say. Also, when someone fears the government or persecution from other powerful interests, a case can be made for limited use of anonymous posts, like Thomas Paine’s 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense.
Those who run blogs need to understand that if they are just going to run one sided political monologues, then most us will skip their sites and go elsewhere. For example, I generally skip over the following: Raising Kaine, Scott’s Morning Brew, Bloggers for (fill in any candidates name), Anti-(anything), Fred2Blue, and (any candidate’s name) Has to go. There are many more, but for the sake of brevity the above are generally not worth a click of the mouse. The WaPo blog, Virginia Politics deserves a dishonorable mention for allowing its editors to anonymously interject rude comments that don’t comply with their own standards of use, into discussions among the citizens
Good blogs that are worth reading both for their content and the active, constructive dialog, include: The Sentinel (VCDL blog), Crystal Clear Conservative, Write Side of My Brain, (except when he posts about cats), VBDems (where R and Ds sometimes agree), Bearing Drift (Kirwin is a political shill and detracts from constructive discourse, but Hoeft and the blog has been increasing efforts to encourage polite discussion, and is therefore improving). Shad Plank and Barticles are useful in that they show what the MSM in Virginia is peddling on any given day. Of course, there is the painfully Democratic, Waldo Jaquith, who is always up for a good verbal jousting, and I have recently began reading Delmarva Dealings because it is nice to be able to mentally visit the Eastern Shore, without experiencing the smell from the Tyson’s chicken plants.
I appreciate the compliment. However, I think that there is an audience for all types of blogs – even if not every author. When Chad Dotson was blogging he was truly a one-stop shop – even though he was often guilty of the “Read this” type of link.
Why? Because he was someone that I, as a conservative, trusted. As I learned the Virginia blogosphere better I may have branched out more in my reading but always came back.
I am guilty as well. I did a recent post where I just linked to one of Jim’s posts on “Bearing Drift” and said that any comment by me wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t, but I know that I have readers that don’t regularly read Jim and I thought that they needed to see his excellent post.
Many of us also do these types of posts because we need to post regular content and don’t have time to write 5, 10, or 20 flagship posts a day. Posting only once a day is not adequate if you want to build an audience. Trust me, as someone who once had an average of over 10,000 page views per day, burned out, quit writing and now wants to rebuild that audience (although I many never hit that number again with “Delmarva Dealings”).
As Jim noted in the post I wrote about here, we all have day jobs. It’s a fine line. That’s why many of us are always looking for ways to keep up a steady stream of good content while still getting sleep at night and not winding up in divorce court.
Thanks again Tyler.