Convention Bloggers–"We Don't Buy the Script"

I’m not sure if the fact that the major parties have asked bloggers to “cover” their conventions is another step on the road to blogging “legitimacy” but it can’t hurt. Especially when the list includes people like Jay Rosen who has a great commentary on this development over on his site.

Now come the bloggers, a tiny group added to the mix, who with all their faults and shenanigans have one great advantage. They aren’t a part of the failed regime in political convention coverage. They don’t have to pretend it has the right narrative. They’re free to look with fresh eyes and re-decide what a convention actually is, knowing where the dead zones are.

I’m sure someone will slap together an RSS feed of the 20 or so credentialed bloggers, and to tell you the truth, I’m more excited about seeing how this experiment works than the conventions themselves, for all of the reasons Jay states. That says a lot from someone who is as passionate about this election as I am.

One key passage from Jay’s post:

What’s the difference between a freewheeling blogger and a traditional journalist? Well, to me it’s obvious: we don’t buy the script.

Well, we’ll see. It’s going to be interesting to read the no apologies liberals like Markos Zuniga of the Daily Kos and Jeralyn Merrit of TalkLeft. While I know it will be hard for them not to slant their coverage, I hope they don’t spew out the political pablum that party pr operatives feed to the media. Toss the script, I say, and write a new one.

Finally, I’m wondering if the big media feel any pressure to roll up their sleeves a bit more because the bloggers have arrived. This could Round One of the edited vs. unedited battle, the 15,000 “professionals” vs. the handful of amateurs, and another chance to put some of these new literacy skills to the test.