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  The Big Tent: Bloggers and democracy

  http://www.realitywindow.com/archives/2008/08/the-big-tent-b...
  80 days ago in Reality Window · Authority: 11

  The Minnesota Post did a really nice article on The Big Tent. Actually if I'm envious of anything, it's of the bloggers who are hanging out in the Big Tent this week, making connections with each other, with all the non-bloggers who stop in to see what this cool new thing is. I'm sure it's crowded and electrical outlets to recharge stuff are at a premium but still. By the way, the picture to the right by the Minnesota Post is of John Aravosis interviewing Markos. John posted video of the interview on Americablog. Susan Gardner of Daily Kos was interviewed and among the other things she said was this description of who was at the Big Tent and why. I think it's one of the best descriptions of the blogosphere, left and right, that I've seen. "We have ongoing dialogues about what policy should be, what elections are like. We're ordinary people extraordinarily interested in politics." Exactly. Wish I'd said that. The article goes on to note: Gardner says bloggers in the Big Tent are from every political persuasion, though there's a preponderance of the left-leaning kind. "If anybody is interested in democracy and wants to get in on the conversation, blogs are a really easy way to start," says Gardner. "We would love it if everyone in the country got so excited about democracy -- whether liberals or conservatives -- they'd get involved in the conversations that are going on." Lots of journalists are covering The Big Tent and the bloggers. Interestingly, they aren't allowed to wander in unless they're escorted by a blogger. Cnet's piece describes the facilities in the Big Tent and compares them to what's available to credentialed bloggers inside the convention center. It's pretty obvious why the bloggers are at the tent. It's interesting to see which people from which blogs got interviewed by which news organizations. CBS had Jen Bruenjes from Daily Kos who did a lot of the organizing of The Big Tent as Dkos is one of the 3 sponsors. They also talked to a DU poster named Cary Wilson aka Hissyspit. The Swamp got Nick Silver of fivethirtyeight.com fame and Jane Hamsher of FDL. The Globe and Mail from Canada talked to Bob Neer of BlueMassGroup, Julia Rosen of Calitics and Julielyn Gibbons of Michigan Liberal. The Dallas Morning News talked with Steve Clemons of The Washington Note, Matt Glazer of the Burnt Orange Report, and Shawn Williams of the Dallas South blog. The article also had more detail on what the blogger arrangements at the Republican convention will be and how they compared to the Dem convention arrangements. The San Jose Mercury News had a nice chat with Markos Moulitsas as well as Matt Cooper, formerly of Time and now a blogger(?) and reporter for Portfolio magazine. Sheila Dowd from momocrat, Jill Stanek - a conservative from Illinois with an axe to grind on Obama, and Craig Newmark of Craigslist also talked with the Mercury News. Lots of interesting elbow-rubbing there when you add in the free information sessions being held on the second floor with the likes of Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, Rachel Maddow, T. Boone Pickens, The two-story, 8,000-square-foot tent, a few blocks from the convention center where traditional media types are holed up, is advertised as new media central for the convention. With sponsors including Google, YouTube and Digg, the Big Tent also underscores how the blogging community is going mainstream. On Monday, visiting reporters had to pass through two check points after getting "press" credentials to cover the tent story. PR representatives milled among the bloggers, who scarfed down burrito lunches donated by a local restaurant. Sprint loaned Silicon Valley-based Momocrats broadband cards and AT&T gave them phones. And what was on the tent's flat-screen TVs? CNN. [...] Google's free massages and fruity smoothies (antioxidants before carbohydrate-laden beer), doesn't mean bloggers are going soft. But the California-style amenities have generated lots of press coverage. Markos represented us well. The SJMNews also talked about why the Big Tent was created. The liberal-minded blogger [Markos] made the trip to the 2004 convention alone. For Denver, he brought 10 of his staff, and paid to help operate the tent. The reason: He feared lesser-known bloggers wouldn't get official convention credentials. He was right. The Democratic National Convention has credentialed more than 120 blogs, but only a fraction of those who wanted in. The privately funded tent is meant to handle the overflow. Just because they can't get onto the floor hasn't stopped them from writing about everything from the 1,200 parties and the side political meetings to opining about, well, everything. But Moulitsas acknowledged the tent's scope has grown beyond his first visions. "I just asked for free food, free WiFi and free beer," he laughed. A second-floor was added to the tent to handle guest speakers ranging from Dan Rather to billionaire T. Boone Pickens to Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt. You can watch what's going on in the second floor sessions via ustream tv. There's live steaming here: http://www.ustream.tv/ for those of us not fortunate to hang out in the Big Tent. If you want the low-down on all the cool technology that bloggers are using at the DNC and in the Big Tent this year, check out the Computerworld piece by Heather Havenstein. There's enough geeky stuff in there to make any techgeek drool. CQPolitics had this scoop from Howard Dean: "I know this will break your heart, but you have better credentials than the mainstream media does," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told a gathering of credentialed bloggers during a barbecue luncheon in a parking lot outside the Pepsi Center on Tuesday. CQPolitics tracked down Republican / right wing bloggers who were there. Republican bloggers have been on the scene as well. Those in attendance include John Tabin and Phil Klein from the conservative American Spectator, Liz Mair, who conducts blogger outreach for the Republican National Committee and Christie Jackson, who is part of a trio of College Republicans documenting their summer road trip travels through Republican congressional districts on the "Where Is the Red?" Web site. And they talked to a couple lefty bloggers as well - David Goldstein of HorsesAss blog and Aaron Silverstein of the Square State blog. The National Journal has the scoop on how the Big Tent almost wasn't ready for its big debut. Sounds like they were hustling to get it together before everyone arrived. They did a second article on the bloggers who received DNC credentials and how they are approaching blogging while sitting with their states' delegations. Looks like most of them are attempting to maintain their independent approach. Kelly Nuxoll at Huffington Post does a "tour" of The Big Tent including a video tour so check it out. The only thing I'm wondering about is that there's nary a mention of Daily Kos or Markos or any of the Dkos people who were instrumental in proposing and organizing the Big Tent. Instead she gives a lot of the credit to Bobby Clark of ProgressNow, a personal friend of hers. Guess it's all in who you know. Amy Brouillette of New West reported who the 3 main organizers of the Big Tent are. A joint, non-profit project of the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado, Daily Kos and ProgressNow, the Big Tent houses an all-green, state-of-the art new-media lounge, and a Digg stage with a host of speakers (live steaming here: http://www.ustream.tv/). And then let us take a moment to chuckle at the Washington Times which appears to have been taken in by Robert Cox, the self-proclaimed head of the Media Bloggers Association which is a group of one. Him. Uh-hem, remember when he "tried" to negotiate with the AP on behalf of bloggers? The reaction of the blogosphere to his pomposity should have been a clue, guys. And finally we have the wistful, outside-looking-in post from Janet Meiners ofMarketing Pilgrim about how cool it would be to be a political blogger and sit in the Big Tent with "a mass of passionate, opinionated writers. A sea of laptops." Sounds like a lot of fun to me too, Janet. Photo credit: CNet

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