Our pal, Jeff
: Jeff Greenfield is probably the bloggers’ best booster in big media because he earnestly likes the things (it’s not just a fad) and he’s influential. He says to TVNewser:
I think the real-time quality to the opinions, corrections, and other voices is terrific; when someone makes a reference to another voice, says ‘read the whole thing’ and lets you link to the other voice, it’s a breakthrough in political dialogue. Unlike some of my colleagues, I don’t fear the lack of editorial control, because there’s a self-correcting mechanism at work, and if peopel don’t like the tone of the blogs, there’s still plenty of traditional media around. My big complaint is that it’s forced me to get up earlier to read all this stuff–including yours.
Not sure yet what I think of the bloggers’ convention coverage. In hindsight, what I think I really want from bloggers is the voice of the voter in the thick of the action — not new journalists, not new pundits, but just people, citizens. I saw some of that. Jay Rosen also gave me what I expected from him — abstracting the experience to find its underpinnings and assumptions — which is amazing since he did it nearly live (for an academic!). I won’t try to catalogue the rest yet; as I said, I’m still mulling. But Charles Cooper at CNET didn’t need any time to decide what he thought: “most of the credentialed bloggers came off like cyberhayseeds in the big city.” But neither did Hugh Hewitt: “The arrival of the bloggers is a big deal. They’ll never not be here in the future, and now the question is who gets to blog the debates?” Oh, Hugh, we all can… from our couches…. with beer in hand….
