Bloggers discuss strengths of the medium

By Betsy Cutcliff
Published on Fri., March 13th, 2009

In the expanding age of technology, more students are turning to blogs for coverage of politics instead of traditional media.

On Wednesday, March 11, Kansas-based political bloggers gathered at the Adams Alumni Center to discuss what it takes to be a successful blogger, and why more young people are turning to the Web for coverage.

Chelsea Mertz, Topeka junior, said speed of access was a factor in the importance of political bloggers.

“It’s a hyper-political time right now,” Mertz said, “and blogs have constant updates.”

Political bloggers in Kansas cover a wide range of topics in the national arena and in smaller communities. They update their blogs constantly, and this gives impatient young adults faster access to what might take news organizations 24 hours to publish or broadcast, Mertz said.

Consistently updating content was one aspect Ben Hodge, a blogger for Kansasprogress.com, said was necessary but frustrating at times. He said that in order to be successful, bloggers had to push themselves to provide readers with opinions about new events as quickly as possible.

One reason Jon Simon, Lenexa senior, said that blogs were updated faster was because of the informality of the writing. In newsrooms, a story goes through editing processes, which Jon said could delay them from getting information out as soon as possible. Blogging can be done live.

“You can think something and then blog about it 30 seconds later,” Simon said.

Another difference between political blogs and mainstream media is that political blogs are usually visibly biased toward one party or another. Hodge said that unbiased news content in mainstream media was hard to come by and that at least with blogging, the writer is honest about his or her affiliation.

Danedri Thompson, blogger for Redcounty.com, has worked in five newsrooms. She said journalists don’t necessarily mean to be partisan. She found that the subjects reporters chose to write about were largely based on their political affiliation. A benefit of blogging, she said, was that readers could get multiple viewpoints while understanding exactly what the blogger’s agendas, intended or unintended, were.

Although some readers may be skeptical of the credibility of bloggers, Jason Croucher, who writes for the left winged blog Kansas Jackass, said a blogger’s credibility stemmed from his content. He said readers would hopefully be able to verify facts on their own, and understand a blog was more like the opinion page than the front page.

Another benefit Simon saw was the scope blogs could cover that mainstream media couldn’t.

“There are tons of small bills in the Legislature that affect us that aren’t worth a whole news story but you can find a blog about,” Simon said.

Croucher said the key to having a successful blog wasn’t just credibility and coverage, but also exposure. Croucher puts links to his blog on internet pages like Twitter and Facebook to reach a broader audience. He said that using free advertising always helps attract more readers.

—Edited by Justin Leverett