DNC bloggers are the life of the party The most interesting story of the Democratic National Convention so far -- according to Wired News's Adam L. Penenberg, anyway -- is the mainstream media's obsession with blogging the convention.
Knight Ridder has a blogger. So does MSNBC, which borrowed Newsweek reporter Howard Fineman for the convention. The Associated Press has three bloggers. Chris "Hardball" Matthews touts Hardblogger. Not to be outdone, CNN.com hosts a multi-headed blog and monitors millions of other blogs in real time.
This absorption of the blog model by mainstream media has left Josh Marshall, who operates Talking Points Memo, almost speechless. "When I see the mainest of mainstream outfits buying into the concept or the model, I really don't know what to think," Marshall wrote. "The best way I can describe my reaction is some mix of puzzlement and incredulity."
I think what's going on is the same thing that happened to cable news. A rash of ideologues rose up to lasso big ratings on Fox News, proving that objective journalism isn't nearly as entertaining as good ol' fashioned punditry. Now blogs are having a similar impact.
Four years ago, online news organizations were first credentialed for the convention -- and that was pretty big news. This time, it's blogs. Maybe the big media story in 2008 will be that every delegate will have his or her own reality show, streamed over the Internet.