Posted by
Katie Favazza on Monday, January 22, 2007 3:35:57 PM
The panel is about to begin. Here goes nothing.
The panelists are:
Rob Bluey, Heritage Foundation
David All, media strategist/President of The David All Group
Mary Katharine Ham, Townhall.com (introduced as "the sweetheart of the blogosphere")
Tim, blogger at ProLifeBlogs.com
LaShawn Barber, blogger at LaShawnBarber.com
David All: He used to write everything that a candidate "said," wrote, or etc., but that has changed with increased involvement in new media. His role changed from speaking for officials to providing them with metrics and letting them speak for themselves more and more. He encouraged candidates to
Rob: Bloggers are changing the scope of influence.
MKH: Video is hard, but it is a lot of fun. It highlights the strengths of the blogosphere. V-logs can humanize what otherwise would be boring on the written page. She hopes that videos can bring a larger audience to issues that otherwise might be looked over.
Tim: He reiterated Ramesh's encouragement that bloggers need to be pro-active in seeking out the truths that are not being revealed by the mainstream media. He said all too often we are reactive and quick to criticize, but we can also bring issues to light ourselves.
LaShawn: She spoke of the importance of authenticity amongst bloggers.
Update: Rob just spoke of the differences of the right's and the left's approaches to new media. Rob spoke of the unity of the left on their larger sites, while the conservative sites--often carrying the same message--are more independent. He said that there are some examples of the more united sites, including RedState and Townhall's Blogatorium. He mentioned me in particular and noted that both Mary Katharine and I were present with our own blog on Townhall.
Mary Katharine wrote about the power of that seeming division, that many different voices speaking about the same thing can make the message even louder.
Tim discussed his aggregating service at ProLifeBlogs.com.
LaShawn offered her suggestions for getting started with blogging, particularly about just getting going--using media criticism as a springboard if you need to get ideas, networking with other bloggers, and more. Later, LaShawn also spoke of the importance of blogging for business owners to establish their niche of expertise when they don't have time to be publishing articles.