Blogging the Convention

I’ve avoided talking about the bloggers at the DNC because thus far I hadn’t heard anything very interesting either from or about the 30 or so bloggers at the convention, other than that there are 30 or so bloggers at the convention.

What’s coolest and unique about blogging – for the most part – is the meta-media angle: the ability and freedom to talk about the media, the use the output of the media (either for good or for ill) to comment upon the media itself or upon the news being covered. When you lose that angle you’re just a fucking reporter.

Well now there’s some pretty interesting stuff coming out and our old pal Sheila Lennon has just about all of it.

First, she sends us (“The Washington Post covers me covering bloggers covering the convention. (Got that?)”) to this reductive spiral in the Filter section of today’s Washington Post:

Incidentally, I discovered my unwitting exposure to other Dave Barry fans through Providence Journal columnist Sheila Lennon, whose Subterranean Homepage News offered a link to his site. Lennon writes some of the best blog observations coming out of the convention thus far, and as I mentioned yesterday, her site’s name is seriously cool. Today’s entry reads, “The Washington Post covers me covering bloggers covering the convention. (Got that?).” To return the compliment, I now am officially covering Sheila Lennon covering me covering her covering bloggers covering the convention.

And I am covering Filter covering Sheila covering Filter covering Sheila covering bloggers covering the convention. See what I mean? The meta-media stuff is the coolest. Who gives a rat’s ass about Ben Affleck wandering around? Or some little “Annie” lookalike chirping at the delegates?

But even more interesting is the (finally) outing of Atrios:

I wrote yesterday about “Atrios,” whose highly partisan blog, Eschaton, reports having collected $276,741 for John Kerry as of July 21, and nearly $75,000 for other Democratic causes and candidates — all from people who don’t even know his name.

Yesterday, reporter Frank Cerebino of the Palm Beach Post casually reveals the identity of Atrios without seeming to know he has a scoop

Moulitsas was talking with Duncan Black, 32, an economics teacher from Philadelphia, whose atrios.blogspot.com has made him one of the nation’s most well-read political commentators.

Black left the bloggers’ gathering early and blogged: “Too many boring speeches, so we went off to an event sponsored by the New Democrat Network discussing the right wing money/media machine.”

….”Duncan B. Black holds a PhD in economics from Brown University. He has held teaching and research positions at the London School of Economics; the Université catholique de Louvain; the University of California, Irvine; and, recently, Bryn Mawr College. He also has been involved with grassroots political activism. Black is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America.”

Click over to Sheila for all the various links and further dizzying attributions.

By the way, I am aware of at least five Blogcritics who are at the convention, in addition to Scott Pepper who is providing us with action photos from the outside.

The other Blogcritics are: David Weinberger

I’m not going in to the Convention until 11am these days. I don’t go out drinking afterwards, which means I’m asleep by 1am. So why am I so beat? Ok, aside from being old, fat and out of shape, why am I so beat?

Crowds are exhausting. Trying to be alert is exhausting. Sitting in one place is exhausting. Being spoken at is exhausting. Being snarky is exhausting. Being exhausted is exhausting.

Jay Rosen

I went to see Rod O’Connor, CEO of the convention. And I asked him a lot of “why” questions. (Including why he’s called CEO.) He has a coherent story. That doesn’t mean wholly convincing, only that it holds together what’s happening this week in the Fleet Center. His view of what political conventions are? Message delivery over multiple platforms, with television yet the biggest deliverer. But that too is a convention– of thought. It can change.

Rick Heller, writing for the Centerfield group blog

The GOP has sent out invitations to bloggers to cover the Republican Convention. Rather than invite applications, they’ve chosen the bloggers themselves, and sent out unsolicited invitations. Depending on how many invitations are accepted, they may send out more. Centerfield has not received an invitation. If we do, I’ll let everybody know. I’m leaning toward the Democrats this year, so I’d be perfectly happy if one of our GOP-leaning bloggers, who might have more fun hanging out at that convention, goes to the gathering in Manhattan.

Our Michele Catalano received one of those invites

I’m trying to figure out my logistics for the RNC and I have a question for those who are blogging the DNC or have done this kind of thing before.

See, the housing pricing memo just came in the mail and, well, no. You have to guarantee a minimum of five nights at a pretty pricey rate and I can’t do that. Plus, I’m staying over two nights at the most.

What I’m wondering is this: What time do things usually get cranking during the day and what time do they wrap up at night? I’m thinking of not staying in the city at all, but going home to Long Island each night and coming back in the morning (I could also then have a blogger or two crash at my place with me, as long as you are relatively well behaved, clean cut and won’t frighten my children and/or husband). So if I go home late at night, what’s the general time I should expect to get back into Manhattan in the morning in order to not miss anything of relative importance? Or does anything of relative importance every happen?

Any help or suggestions on this matter would be greatly appreciated. I’m a novice at this thing.

Also: Anyone who received creds for the RNC, please leave a link to your blog here so I can compile a list. Thanks.

Back to the Democrats, Matt Welch is covering the Convention for Reason:

If you are one of those people who are aglow after two days of Democrat rhetoric — and I’ve actually met many humans like that, these past 48 hours — you probably haven’t noticed a subtle theme that crops up again and again, like a nervous and revealing tic. Namely, that being a professional six-figure politician should be confused with noble “service,” while throwing them your hard-earned money amounts to a brave and selfless sacrifice.

And last, but certainly not least, Dave Pell:

As I’ve mentioned, unity has been the major theme of this convention. In some ways (and this sort of makes sense when we’re all in the mix of things) though, I haven’t quite been able to identify the key set of messages everyone is unified around – other than they want the Kerry-Edwards ticket to be victorious.

Well, that’s not quite right. There is of course one piece of the message that has been fired over the bow of the Fleet Center crowd over and over. That message, which hit overdrive as John Kerry arrived at Boston’s Logan Airport and stepped immediately into the arms of his swift boat crew with whom he shared a boat ride into town, is that John Kerry has the strength to be the Commander in Chief.

Given historic efforts to paint Dems as soft on defense and the nature of this era, the focus on Kerry’s strength and military experience makes perfect sense. But the spotlight on this issue at the expense of other issues where Kerry/Edwards poll very well is something of a risk.

Good stuff, okay maybe I was a little bitter at the beginning of the post.

All of the Convention bloggers are aggregated here. Blog on!