Convention blogging

Three of our reporters are heading for Boston to cover the Democratic Convention. As reporters for state news networks, they focus on the state delegations and do a lot of their work at the hotel where the delegates are staying. Along with our “regular” news coverage, each of the reporters will take a stab at blogging the four-day event as well. Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson posted some wonderful reports (via email) from the 2000 convention, but we just didn’t have tools (or the word “blog”). The other two guys are experienced reporters but are new to this kind of writing (as far as I know). Should be interesting.

 

Time.com on blogs

“…blogs have gone from an obscure and, frankly, somewhat nerdy fad to a genuine alternative to mainstream news outlets, a shadow media empire that is rivaling networks and newspapers in power and influence.”

The web is a conversation

David Wineberger says the Web is not a medium but, rather, a conversation. “Small Pieces, Loosely Joined.” I am endlessly fascinated by how the Web connects us. Last year Dan Arnall completed his master’s degree at Columbia University and is still living and working (part-time?) at CNN and MSNBC (or one of those cable channels). If anyone can be held responsible for my pathetic addiction to the Web, it’s Dan. We are loosely joined.

“Just the other day I read your blog entry (Cozy) and noticed that the model home you mentioned was just a few blocks away in Tribeca. I hopped the train after work, saw the damn thing and talked to the architect. I even went so far as to pass it along to CNNfns Housing/Real Estate reporter. She went out and shot a segment that will air in the next few weeks.

I don’t think blogging is about random voyeuristic pleasure. It’s an acknowledgement that there is value in almost every thought and experience of the everyman not just self-appointed pundits or editors. You may not know it, but someone might just find something they need in what you blog: a CNN segment, a moment of laughter, sometimes even a sense of connection with someone they’ve never met.”

Halley Suitt: Life in a box

“…about how we all spend so much time having a life that seems to be the kind of life other people have — get up, get breakfast, get dressed, go to work, get there at 9:00, leave there at 5:00 or 6:00 or whatever, come home, eat dinner, watch TV — and I suddenly found this really sad. That we come to this earth and that’s all we can come up with for a life. I don’t want to be the fire-eating woman in the circus or something, but I think I want more of a life than a person who lives in a box, leaves their box in the morning, gets in their box-with-wheels, drives to another office box, sits in that box for 8 hours, their butt spreading a little wider every day from just sitting there, goes home to their box, sits in front of the box, eats a frozen dinner out of a box, goes to sleep on their mattress and box spring.”

— Halley Suitt