Today’s SXSW panel “Revenge of the Blogs” – organized by Henry Copeland and featuring me, Markos Moulitsas, and Mike Krempasky – turned out very well. We struck a good balance between talking about the influence of local and national blogs, and some people even began to draw a connection between the two. Judging by the people who came up to talk with me afterward, I think I must have said some interesting and useful things.
I used the issue of red light cameras in Chapel Hill (thanks, Will) to illustrate how Orange Politics has had concrete impact. I also referenced an insightful comment from an earlier conversation with the Independent‘s Kirk Ross to talk about what happens when journalists start blogging. It’s a new challenge for them to suddenly put themselves in the story which they’ve been trained and ingrained not to do as reporters.
One audience member asked Markos what he was doing to help his readers who might live near each other to find each other. He wasn’t very interested in this very good idea, which is disappointing especially considering the great number of free tools which can do exactly this. I think the panel might have been better attended if Markos’ presence had been advertised better (see below) but maybe that’s for the best.
There were lots of good ideas discussed during and after the session and I just have to thank Henry Copeland again for inviting me. I hope it’s not my last trip to SXSW. And now, on to the parties….
Ruby did a great job describing how local blogs can emphasize issues over “brands”.
Here’s the panel.
There was some decent live blogging of this panel at dailyKOS (scroll down), but the writer kept calling me “Judy!” 🙁
I attended the panel and left wishing we’d heard more from you, Ruby. You can read my brief impressions of the panel as part of this post.