OxBlog

# Posted 5:45 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

WHY DO BIG MEDIA SUDDENLY CARE ABOUT BLOGS? Last night, in a dark wooden corner of an Irish pub, he said to me that journalists now think bloggers are important because bloggers have been invited to cover an event -- the Democratic convention -- that journalists describe as inherently unimportant.

Who was "he"? I wish I remember. The only name I remember from last night is Sam Adams. But the point is still valid. If the convention is a pseudo-event produced for the benefit of the media, then by virture of getting invited, bloggers have become newsworthy.

I've also noticed that the same few bloggers are getting all of the attention. Since one of them is Patrick Belton, I think that's just great. But it means that other blogs are getting left out and that journalists are limiting their own supply of information. For example, all but one of the bloggers mentioned in Howard Kurtz's convention-blogging round-up also get mentioned or quoted in Jenny 8-ball's round-up at the NYT.

If you're willing to invest the time, the best article about bloggers at the convention belongs to Carl Bialik & Elizabeth Weinstein at the WSJ. After a brief introduction, they let more than two dozen bloggers speak for themselves. In fact, each one gets a whole paragraph rather than a single quote.

Now let's turn the question around: Are bloggers going to tell us anything interesting about the convention that we wouldn't read about in a newspaper or political magazine? I don't know. It's too early to say. But I'm curious.

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