CNET's Charles Cooper slams bloggers convention coverage.
...[B]logging blew its big chance in Beantown.He managed to take the "Bill Clinton looks really small from the upper tiers of the Fleet Center" line completely out of context and failed to link to the story that it came from. That might be a defensible course of action if his column were running in a print publication, but it's CNET and they're web only and supposedly a little more web savvy than that.With a few exceptions, most of the credentialed bloggers came off like cyberhayseeds in the big city. Many dared for the painfully obvious as they updated their posts. Most of the blogging entries I have read ranged from the insufferably pedantic to the sublimely mediocre. There were exceptions, of course, but the see-me, hear-me tenor of their reporting was only exceeded by the vapidity of the banal commentaries peddled as analyses.
Did they get co-opted? Sure seems that way at first glance. Maybe the ego-lifting moment of their 15 minutes of prime-time fame got in the way of clear thinking. Or maybe they were simply starstruck at rubbing shoulders in the line for the men's room with folks like Ben Affleck and Warren Beatty. I remember covering my first political convention as a college junior in 1976 and how wowed I was when bandleader Peter Duchin deigned to smile at me.
But these are big boys and girls. After spending years belittling the shortcomings of the mainstream media, they had me expecting more. Instead, I had to content myself with gems such as, "Bill Clinton looks really small from the upper tiers of the Fleet Center." Really? If that knocks your socks off, my advice would be to take in the view from the bleachers at Fenway Park sometime.
Truth be told, it's especially frustrating to have to write these lines, because I still believe blogging is one of the most exciting developments of the last five years.
Whatever the reason, few came to town with their "A" game. And that's a shame, because I'm sure many from the world of mainstream media left town thinking they had little to worry about if this is the best the blogging world can produce.
The author of the line Cooper tries to use to prove his characterization of bloggers as "cyberhayseeds" responds to the Cooper's bashing here.
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Convention Coverage
Comments (7)
You've got to admit, the co... (Below threshold)1. Posted by oceanguy | July 30, 2004 1:36 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
You've got to admit, the coverage by the bloggers was very poor. One of the best written blogs, Talk Left, became a star-struck adolescent as soon as she alighted on Blogger's Roost.
As NZ Bear opined, they needed to stop taking pictures of each other and giving interviews to the big media. Dave Winer did a terrible job explaining blogs when I saw him on Fox The biggest story of the bloggers was the outing of Atrios..... Yeah, I'd say Charles Cooper was right, they blew it.
1. Posted by oceanguy | July 30, 2004 1:36 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 30, 2004 13:36
2. Posted by Laurence Simon | July 30, 2004 2:36 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Way way way too many copy-pastes of speeches that people were watching on air or reading online. The purpose of going to a convention is to get that which others aren't getting, or to report on the process behind the scenes that you can't get from any other means.
Sure, nothing serious is going on behind the scenes in fully-scripted conventions, but it is possible to document the process adn get interviews with officials or individuals on how deluded they are into thinking they're making a difference being there as part of the circus.
The only worthwhile on-the-scene reporting by a TV crew was by The Daily Show. Jon Stewart demolishing the fawning idiocy... priceless.
2. Posted by Laurence Simon | July 30, 2004 2:36 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 30, 2004 14:36
3. Posted by Pete | July 30, 2004 3:28 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Gotta agree on this one -- I hope th bloggers at the RNC can learn from the (huge) mistakes made this time around.
Not that this should surprise anyone -- a huge contingent of the blogosphere tends to get a little self-obsessed at times... patting themselves on the back, "Look at me! Look at me!", etc... not that there's anything wrong with that, but there comes a time to put up or shut up, and getting a foot in the door at a national political convention is a pretty big deal and should've been taken more seriously, I think.
I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed for the RNC.
3. Posted by Pete | July 30, 2004 3:28 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 30, 2004 15:28
4. Posted by -S- | July 30, 2004 6:23 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
HA. I am SURE the problem lies with the Left and who the DNC selected among them -- but, most specifically, that the entire importance of the Left blogging of interest is in bashing Bush and negating "rightwingnutjobs" (or, just plain, old "conservatives" and "fundamentalists" with nod to the always handy, "fascists").
The DNC throttled the blogging standard of use by enforcing the "be nice" and "no bashing" standard for the Convention (thus, the banned blogger from yesterday's news). Such that, it then left the "official bloggers of the DNC convention" with NOTHING TO WRITE ABOUT. They then had to write, well, fodder instead.
~At least no one wrote a column that went,
>>> "I feel siiiicccck and my head huuuurrtts and I still have to do my launnnnddrrry, and, oh, yeah, Janeane Garafolo is hawt if she wasn't so gaaaayyy. Yeah, cool, and Bush is mean."
~
4. Posted by -S- | July 30, 2004 6:23 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 30, 2004 18:23
5. Posted by retired military | July 30, 2004 9:31 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
I thought like 90% of the bloggers at the convention were left leaning in the first place. If this is true then I wonder what that guy is saying about the folks who support Kerry.
5. Posted by retired military | July 30, 2004 9:31 PM |
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Posted on July 30, 2004 21:31
6. Posted by Norman | July 30, 2004 10:21 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Sublimely mediocre pretty much resembles my blogging from the DNC - hell, pretty much my blogging anyway. Maybe it would have helped if I had actually gone to Boston.....Nah!!!!
6. Posted by Norman | July 30, 2004 10:21 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 30, 2004 22:21
7. Posted by map | August 5, 2004 11:34 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Mercury Rev (this one is mapquest arguable either way). Sebadoh, maps first with Lou and Eric, map quest then with Lou and Jason. map quest They Might Be Giants. Pixies, us map although they just broke driving directions up before too much of it hotel got to happen. Here's another hotels
7. Posted by map | August 5, 2004 11:34 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on August 5, 2004 11:34