convention weblogs a Success, Bloggers less so

Michael Gartenberg | July 29, 2004, 09:00 AM

I've been thinking this all week as I watched how the press covered the convention and how the bloggers covered it.

From the AP "It seems as if bloggers were awed by the whole idea of being among the first of their kind at a national party convention - and had to call attention to that fact. Reading the early postings, I found more about bloggers than about the delegates, speakers or protesters. One posted a photo of the media pass, while several showed their "Bloggers Boulevard" workspace.

I did however enjoy reading the weblog done by Chris Matthews and his team over at MSNBC. The analysis and insight was more of what I was hoping the bloggers would bring to the table. The things that didn't make it on camera and are not scripted. Perhaps it's the fact that folks like Dee Dee Myers or Andrea Mitchell are less start struck at being at the convention. Perhaps it's because they had access to folks that were higher up the food chain and therefore could provide better analysis as a result. Perhaps it's because they are political professionals and this is their space. I've discussed in the past how weblogs work best when the folks writing them have expertise in the area they write about. I think the sites like hardblogger show the power of the weblog format when applied to something like the DNC. It also shows the weakness of of having to wade through the signal to noise ratio looking for something of interest. I'd call the weblogs a success but the majority of the bloggers less so.