the new york times magazine sunday featured a cover article on the impact of bloggers on the '04 presidential campaign. it is stunning, i think, that such blogs as wonkette , dailykos and mydd , on the left, and powerline, , realclearpolitics, and andrew sullivan , on the right, get upwards of a hundred thousand readers daily. you read that correctly. 100.000+. daily.
why? one reason, i think, is they play to our weakness. in doing so, they contribute to the nasty side of partisan politics. wonkette is nasty, both in the sense of her rhetoric cutting with a sharp edge, and in her potty mouth spewing in all directions.
listen, i'm no puritan but i take st. paul seriously in his encouragement to the thessalonians (5:11) to "build one another up." how does one take a stance that says, yes, politics matters a lot, and i'm going to engage with passion, but in such a way that my contributions that (thessalonians, again, this time 5:15) "do not return evil for evil but always seek what is good both for each other and for all."
Markos Moulitsas, of daily kos, the most read blogger in the country with over 350,000 readers daily, had this to say about his theory of self-expression: ''I'm not about to censor myself on any issue." ''If I care about something, I'll write about it. It's the essence of blogging. As for the mainstream media, who cares what some joker journalism professor wrote? Just keep blogging, doing your thing, and the blogosphere will continue to do just fine. We should let our accomplishments speak for themselves, and they will.''
hmm. i hope that my reflections here are censored, of a sort, in the sense that i know full well that some things that can be said ought not be said, or can be said in a way that does not destroy. would i get more readership if i used this space to bash somebody? maybe i've bashed the political bloggers when i meant only to rant about their excess. keen and edgy investigative journalism made widely available is essential for democracy, and for that purpose blogs can be fantastic.
i have to write a short article (500 words) that asks what i think the political debates this year are missing, but need, from a christian perspective. i might just send bush and kerry and all their spin doctors and pollsters and bloggers to read st. paul.
anon, and +peace
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