Edin08 Blogger Summit – Blogging the Election

This second panel started talking about the nature of blogs: how personal blogs work differently from blogs by traditional news sources, the capacity of blogs to link and to make use of multimedia, the empowering and democratic nature of blogs and how politicians are being held more accountable because of blogging. Ramesh Ponnuru from National Review Online commented that liberal bloggers preferred Edwards, then Clinton, then Obama, making the point that bloggers don’t necessarily speak for everyone and that they aren’t that large a group. But he followed up by noting that bloggers are influential.

The panel also talked about the speed of news, the tendency to make every action of the candidates a mountain instead of identifying some as molehills, and the fact that blogs usually feature snippets, not broad views, that may (or may not) be pieced together by readers.

A conversation then developed on the quality of news and how to evaluate the quality of news: whether bloggers, especially bloggers who are journalists and write for news sources, should raise the level of debate (and whether they are raising the level of debate). Whether news on candidate gaffes or where the candidates send their kids to school is hard news or fluff news. And is it fluff news if people decide their choice for President based on that piece of information?

Panelists for this session were Chris Cillizza, Washington Post blogger (“The Fix”); Jonathan Martin, Politico; Michele McNeil, Ed Week reporter/blogger; and Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review Online. Moderator was Marc Lampkin from Edin08.

One more session to go!