Starting today, the Globe’s political reporters will be contributing to a new blog, in addition to writing their various pieces in the print edition. And one of their first posts talks up the upcoming blogger-cosponsored Lt. Gov. forum. Thanks guys! We have added the Globe’s blog (called “Political Intelligence”) to our Mass. Media links on the BlogRoll.
Please share widely!
than what they currently have on-line. I discovered their blog yesterday and the topic of the day: which musicians had donated to which campaigns. Wow. . .
Is the Globe’s new effort really a blog, or just a webified page of print, written by Globe staff, and closed to outside comment? Is there anywhere for readers to respond? Am I missing something?
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If I’m not, then is really isn’t a blog.
what is it, exactly, that makes a blog a blog? Talking Points Memo doesn’t allow comments (except by email, which doesn’t count), yet Josh Marshall is routinely described as a pioneering political “blogger.” If a blog is just a means of quickly posting information or opinion in a sequential fashion, then TPM and the Globe’s new site are certainly blogs. If, on the other hand, a true blog requires the opportunity for community participation, then neither qualifies.
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My guess is that the Globe was aware of the various disasters that have befallen the Washington Post’s blogs (which allowed comments), and so decided to stick to the TPM model, at least for now.
The Globe is a Newspaper. What’s the difference between this blog and any of their other content? It’s updated more frequently? It’s stuff not fit to print in a newspaper?
not a blog. It’s just an electronic version of the Globe’s “Calendar” page, tuned to a political channel. Big deal.
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It was just reported that the Globe’s circulation was down 8.5%, worst of the 20 major dailies except for the SF Chronicle.
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Coincidental? Hardly. It’s symptomatic of an old, entrenched technology fighting ineffectively to perserve its turf.
If the Globe’s isnt really a blog, then what about BPDnews.com?
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Really, those are just snippets you could find off the police log and crime data that is published elsewhere….
Most simply, a blog is just any web page that shows new items in reverse chronological order. That’s all. It could just be a photographer’s photo blog where she posts a new photo every week.
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We’ve got many more nuanced versions of what blogs can be. Blogs with comments are different from blogs without, and of those with comments, those that have threaded comments are much different from those that don’t. Blogs with community features like Scoop, SoapBlox, and LiveJournal, where everyone can join and post, are extremely different from blogs controlled by a central authority that decides who can post… and of the “controlled” blogs, some are individuals, and some are group blogs, and those are different too.
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There are certain writing styles we consider “bloggy”, as well as “bloggy” ways of picking and treating topics. If you read Josh Marshall’s posts on TPM and compare to his articles in, say, Washington Monthly, the difference is obvious, and it’s one of the reasons nobody challenges TPM’s status as a “political blog” even though it doesn’t allow comments, and is written by a professional journalist.
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As long as the Globe’s blog publishes new material in real time presented in reverse chronological order on a web page, it’s a blog. What type of blog is it? Well, it seems to be a group blog, with no commenting. How “bloggy” will its writing style be, and its choice of topics? We’ll see.
and maybe they don’t allow comments, but take it for what it is — a decent source of additional information on the campaigns.
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I like it, I think it allows the reporters to be a bit snarkier than they are in their print articles. It also allows the Globe to publish tidbits which wouldn’t fill more than 3 inches of copy (your typical news story runs somewhere b/t 12 and 15 inches.)
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The Washington Post has been doing this for quite a while, most notably with Howard Kurt, their media critic. I’m a fan — it’s a step in the right direction for papers and provides a nice spoil to the broadcasters with blogs… cough cough.