General

Are Bloggers Pundits or Operatives?

Some are, some aren’t.  A completely fascinating article today from Patrick Ruffini.  The fascinating aspect is almost routine as he regularly posts stuff that makes you go hmmm.

Today, he notes that there are two types of bloggers, which he calls pundits vs. activists.  And in so noting, he sort of preempts a post I had building in which I note the same thing, but in my head I was dividing it as bloggers who serve as media/journalist auxiliaries, and bloggers who serve as political party auxiliaries.  I would put myself and Bizzyblog into the first category, and Matt Naugle (of naugblog) and Weapons of Mass Discussion on the political party side of that divide.  It’s not a clear distinction, but helpful.

Back to Ruffini, he notes that in this divide, conservative bloggers are much more likely to be pundits, and liberals are much more likely to be activists.  We’ve seen a lot of this in the Ohio blogosphere.  The righty blogs are much less organized, and appear to have much less ties with local organized politics.  I don’t want to generalize too much, other than to say, noted, and yes, it’s fascinated.  And is it because something is deeper at work?  Are conservative righty’s more likely to have day jobs and families, and churches that are very important parts of their lives just to pose one theory?  (definitely true in my case).  Worth thinking about.  Patrick here:

At the same time, you can’t be a shill. My blogging would be a whole lot less interesting if I were a total McCain hack. I’m not going to tell you things are coming up roses in November or all is well with the right now (though I’ll occasionally play the contrarian on this when events warrant).

And this is why I’ve landed squarely on the side of the media/journalism side of the political blogosphere continental divide.  I want the freedom to say, for example, that Jean Schmidt has blown it, or the OGOP are a bunch of stupid nincompoops (or whatever).  It also stems from my determination, after the 2000 election, to not be surprised when the true state of affairs are revealed by, say, a national election.  And that takes fact finding and journalism and is directly opposed to party activism.

Of course, I am not opposed to activist blogs, they have a part to play and an important one, but they are limited in honesty and authenticity, although the best ones push that limit as far as it can go in the interest of attracting an audience.

UPDATE

So the NixWife read this last night and thought I probably was too harsh on the Activist side, so maybe I was a little inartful in my wordage, to borrow a phrase from our Deliver, the Obama.

Let’s do it this way, if you’re an OH blogger, do you see yourself more as a:

-Pundit/New Media

-Activist

-Both

-I’m offended by the question.

-I don’t have time for this nonsense (the default)

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