So there’s a front page article today in the Wall Street Journal. The subject? My political blog, Blue Hampshire. The title?
“Have a Laptop? You, Too, Can Sway New Hampshire Race.”
Subtitle?
“Self-Appointed Bloggers Get Candidate Face Time; On the Bus With Edwards”
You know, there’s so much insecurity in that headline that I’m nervous for the WSJ. I really want to pat them on the head and tell them it’ll be all right.
Personally I think the article is a catalog of the traditional misconceptions about bloggers. The weird thing is it’s not a hatchet job (well, except for the dot portrait that looks nothing like me). I mean, it’s an honest attempt to understand this phenomenon through the lens of tradmed. It captures what we do, but then places that into the culture of access, status, centralized control, and nonparticipation that is predominant there. And the result is that we’re portrayed as just reporters running around with less professionalism.
Am I happy about the article though? Extremely. Front page WSJ, man. The people who get what we’re about will see that and visit us. The people that don’t won’t. That’s fine by me.
Hapgood 
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