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July 07, 2004

Blogging the convention

Jay Rosen:

Know your history, especially what happened to the first regime in convention coverage, why it yielded to television and how it became a degraded media event. Don't join up with the second regime, whose story went dead a long time ago. Pick up from where Koppel walked out in '96, and find a reason to be there. If you have your reason, but you're in doubt on what to write about, ask yourself who sent you and your laptop to Beantown. Post an account for them.

Report backwards to whatever place you came from-- including the opinions you came from, the political place. Feed the user's advice forward into your choices during the three days of whirling events...

Lots more great stuff about conventions and the media over at Jay's. [I updated the quote slightly after Jay did.]

Good advice. I have no interest in reporting the events for "the record" because there are 15,000 Professional Journalists there who'll do that far better than I could. I'm going as a citizen who - thanks to blogs - happens to have a (theoretically) global platform. I guess I'm viewing this as being like writing a travelogue for the folks back home, except as a citizen, I'm a partisan with a stake in what happens.

Posted by D. Weinberger at July 7, 2004 05:34 PM

Comments

I'm counting on you to help me understand who the people who attend these things are. The whole notion of conventions - in an era where all the decisions have been made months before - seems anachronistic to me. Do folks attend so that the event looks good on TV? To get psyched about working as campaign volunteers for the next four months? To party with fellow Dems? Or is their an actual, practical reason folks attend these gatherings?

Posted by: Ethan | July 7, 2004 06:01 PM

The Jewish Divide on Israel
 Comments on "conflicted" vs. "afflicted" are invited. I think Hannah Arendt is a real and significant philosopher (philosophess) who deserves a place in the Pantheon of luminaries, because she was able, nay compelled, to think "outside the box," and embrace philosophy as a universal activity and art form worth every penny in its own right, while remaining a fully engaged political person. Religion can easily become a form of national racism, this she knew, just like the Republican Party has become a forum for International Capitalism. Notice how the other international corporate states have slunk back to kiss Bush butt in Iraq, howeversomuch they whine and whimper about it. They know that, ultimately, it's either one for all and all for one as the exploiters, or resignation to the explioted. Gee, what would you pick. Economic interest will always outweigh all others eventually, because the short term of being is always more urgent than the long haul of becoming. As far as the Convention--What's Up Doc? --E. Fudd
PS: Would you be brave enough to breakfast with me at the APA in Dec.? I have reservations in Chelsea.

Posted by: bw | July 8, 2004 08:26 AM

Know your history eh?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400046610

If you like well documented historical facts this is the book for you.

"Liberals have been wrong about everything in the last half century,"

Posted by: MoralPhile | July 15, 2004 05:27 AM

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