You already can see some of the Florida bloggers’ coverage of the Democratic National Convention. Go to the Florida Progressive Coalition Blog and there’s a video of how it was to drive toward Denver with Tropical Storm Fay on the outside of the car and a George Carlin tape rolling inside. Ba-dum!
And you can order text-message reports by texting quinnelk to 58888.
In six days we’ll know how this venture has worked out, but in the meantime, there’s a Florida flavor to what the NY Times reported Saturday as “The year of the political blogger has arrived.”
Florida has a half-dozen full members of the Convention Bloggers Team, plus three other members of the Florida Progressive Coalition who are attending and will pitch in wherever they can to provide blogging, photos, video, Internet radio, Twitter and other stuff I may be forgetting. I’m one of the latter group and am still in South Florida while most of the others are en route or begging for airplanes finally to take off after that pesky tropical storm disrupted flight plans. I plan to fly to Denver Tuesday and hit the last few days with all the energy possible.
The idea is to provide more coverage on the FPC blog of the Florida delegation than the public could see on Sunshine State media outlets of the mainstream variety.
And that is the very same reason (take away the Florida aspect) why hundreds of bloggers from around the country are in the media throng in Denver – to provide alternate, and possible better, coverage of a political event.
And win new readers.
In addition to the NY Times, DailyKos also worked on this angle Saturday with a front-page piece reporting on the NY Times article as well as making Kossak observations about the Times’ placement of the article in its Fashion & Style pages rather than in a more serious place. Click over to the Times link above and see the dazzling larger photo that illustrates the article.
Kos comments:
And as an aside, it's hard to imagine anything more hilarious than Phillip Anderson of The Albany Project--aka DailyKos's own lipris--posing with a brew, a dog, a Mac, and a baseball cap in his usual (how shall we say this?) casual apparel under a blazing Fashion & Style masthead.
Funny thing is, if the traditional media doesn't get its expense act together and learn how to cut costs and compete in the new media environment, the guy in the baseball cap--and all of us he represents--is going to have the last laugh.
That’s the main drift of the Kos piece: that mainstream media costs are stratospheric, and we skinny folks lugging laptops and $100 Flip video cameras will beat them into their gold-plated dust.
The Florida Progressive Coalition team probably will announce its modest budget when the dust settles. Suffice to say that much was raised with $25 donations.
As an example of what we’re doing, there’s the live-blogging on Blast Off the other day when Hillary Clinton was at FAU to cajole her supporters into backing Obama. Blogger Sinfonian admits that the “quality sucks” but he’s exactly right in saying that “the money shot is the last sentence.”
Which said:
“Anyone who supported me has much more in common with Senator Obama than with Senator McCain.”
Sinfonian’s report has several minutes of context – unlike the mainstreams who’d only report the sound bite – and the public has a chance to make up its own mind. Horray for comprehensive reporting. I am a camera. Let it roll for a while and people will take a few minutes and watch.
Anyone who'd like to support the blogging team is welcome to donate. One way is to go to https://www.paypal.com/ and donate through the Florida Progressive Coalition account (quinnelk@gmail.com),
You can write a check to Florida Progressive Coalition and send it to:
Kenneth Quinnell
3328 Whirlaway Trail
Tallahassee, FL 32309
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