Burnt Orange Report

Even More on Blogging

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

Because the new "hot thing" here on Burnt Orange seems to be to rehash each other's stories with a new perspective in the form of a new post (I really do love you all!) I'm going to toss in my couple of coppers on the issue.

I've been writing online for four years come this January. But I have been blogging for maybe a third of that. There is an area of difference in writing for myself, keeping track of my life and feelings and whatnot, and writing for BOR. I also was a newspaper reporter and editor (of two papers) for a total of 6 years before coming to college. Having my fingers and toes in all of these pools of literary water has been enlightening.

I viewed blogging as reporting before I viewed it as blogging. I believe now, that blogging is partly unique reporting and partly highlighting and connecting readers to the best of the vast amounts of other reports on the web. And those 'reports' can be from the New York Times or from other bloggers.

For instance, I do not believe that it will ever be easy for bloggers to generate the content that mainstream news organizations can when it comes to International Issues. They have extensive networks and contacts in various governments and agencies that everyday citizen bloggers just don't have access to. Were we do have strength as bloggers, is to quickly connect readers to the firsthand reports of bloggers in other countries that can report on local reactions, be it Indonesian bloggers talking about tidal waves, or Iraqi bloggers during the Iraq War.

Where traditional media (usually) tries to be unbiased, bloggers can call the shots as we see them (the O'Reileys of the Internet) and point it out when traditional media and other bloggers are in err. Bloggers will not settle for waiting for stories to come down the pipe from the press either; if we are interested and knowledgeable, we will do our own reporting, post it, and once in a while push it right back up that pipe to the press like Jerome over at MyDD has been with the Democratic National Convention updates.

Yes, there will be some natural merging of the mediums, whether it is blogger's attraction to circulation (hits) and ad revenue or the media attempting to be more "in tune" with their audience by adding Bloggers the mix. But I'm not too concerned about it at the moment because it's a natural evolution that we will have front row seats to report on.

With that, we here at Burnt Orange will continue in the Spring, to offer a window into the workings of the Texas Legislature, the Texas Democratic Party, the ongoing adventures of Governor Goodhair.