Everybody knows that Robert Scoble was invited to tail along with the John Edwards campaign for the 2008 presidency. And that’s a great thing. A blogger, a real blogger, with enthusiasm, the naivete of geekhood, along on a Big Media Excursion.
And damned if the first 24 hours weren’t good. And then this gem, wherein it is shown in in-your-face detail, how insignificant those who weren’t included really are:
The problem is how do average citizens do trips like this and get access if they have to pay their own way? That’s going to be a problem. Maybe bloggers should start an association to pay for their own representatives to go on trips like this. That way we’ll make sure we keep our independence and credibility, while getting access to things like this.
Average citizens?? Sheesh, dude, average citizens keep this country going, working, paying their bills, drinking a few beers on the weekend. And us average folk don’t really give a rat’s patoot about going on some cross-country boondoggle 18 months before the election. And, there’s no way any association is gonna form, since it’s foreordained that the A-listers in their little fuzzy echo chamber who are going to provide the “independence and credibility”. They’ll look a lot like the Big Media we already know and hate.
Sorry, Robert, but I’ve got better things to do.
-k-
Technorati Tags: scobleizer
![[Valid Atom 1.0]](http://www.quietvoice.org/wp-images/valid-atom.png "Validate my Atom 1.0 feed")
12 Comments
Everyone I meet, whether a taxi driver in New Orleans, to steel workers and educators who showed up for his town hall meetings would love for an opportunity like the one I had.
Thanks, Robert, and I appreciate your comment. Average citizens basically know they’re average, and while I agree that they’d love the opportunity, I (and I think you do too) also realize that they’re not going to have such a chance, and instinctively mistrust anyone purporting to care about their interests.
I can call me Ken Average; nobody else better do likewise.
–k–
Ken: I’m sitting next to the campaign managers and they say you’re wrong. They are going to try to get a wide range of bloggers into see the campaign in an intimate way.
In fact, they say that talking to A listers will doom the effort because all they’d be doing is talking with gatekeepers and people who are too worried about placating their audiences. They want to get to smaller bloggers who don’t yet worry about such things.
Robert:
Holy Moley, I’m still trying to reply back on your blog. But, if the Edwards campaign really believes what you just wrote, that’s a good thing. It’s also an historic thing. I hope, and find it hard to believe, that it will actually happen.
Being an old,cynical, average coot, I’d absolutely love to be proven wrong.
-k-
Robert Scoble is not an average guy. He was chosen for a reason. He is an A-lister and a gatekeeper. This is all well and good and perfectly fine, but let’s be honest about the status of Scoble in the blogosphere, as well as his attractiveness to the Edwards campaign.
Which…typing ‘campaign’ on my little web buddy’s blog 23 months before the election makes me want to vomit, since it reduces the blogosphere to just another media arm for the poobahs to juice and twist. I guess there’s an upside to every citizen being informed of every move by every candidate 24/7 by 300K bloggers, too, but I don’t expect any junior journo to be LESS affected by the blazing white teeth of the candidate or the double-talk of the campaign manager than say, the rest of the journo pack. It’s what they do for a living and what they have trained their whole life for, after all. They’re very good at it, and none more so than at the national level.
Bah…my cynical-old-cootism is showing.
Scott:
I’m limited to one dose of sanity per day. Thanks for providing today’s dosage.
I yearn for the day when someone running for office says “We’ll leave you alone.” I also await the return of the Dodgers to Brooklyn, and the Second Coming.
At least one of those three is gonna happen, and I’m putting my life, and the living thereof, into the latter.
Happy New Year.
-k-
Oh, heck…I’ll run for office and say just that, and I’ll get two votes…mine and yours.
I deleted a diatribe from the comment above about voting for the politician that stands next to a self-made man who rebuilt his business to cash-flow-positive in NO after Katrina with no help from the feds. But since you brought it up…people don’t want to hear that kind of stuff any more. They want to know what the feds are going to do to make their life more like the Swedes or Canucks.
OK, then…back to poker.
And a happy New Year to you, sir…
I , too, will have to accept the mantle of cynicism (I refuse to go the old coot route at this point).
First, how would the C-list (or lower) bloggers be chosen? Are they gonna get some right-wing friendly dudes? I doubt it. They might say they want to, but why would they want someone who might criticize everything they do? And even though I myself am a fan of Mr. Edwards, I don’t need to hear the gushing of a yes man, either. I can root for him on my own.
Second, the whole act of embedding somebody, as Scott said above (at least this is what I got out of it) is that it is likely to assimilate them also.
Blogging is a tool, not a thing unto itself. It is (or at least should be) a way of expressing oneself to a potentially extremely interested group, be it large or small. If a campaign wants to give us access to the mind of the candidate, let him blog and we decide his intentions and thoughts on their own merits.
Or even better, podcast or videopodcast every single one of his speeches. No editing, just record them and put them into the old rss feed. Again, treat us like the thinking adults that we are, don’t get someone to chew it for us. That’s what new media is. Access, not soundbites and sanitizing. Anything else is just old media on the web.
Sorry for the novella, but you know, I share my brother’s passion for the ability of thinking people to get enough information to make up their own minds.
Scoble, I said it when you started at MS and I’ll say it again now. Don’t drink the fucking kool-aid. And if you do drink it, don’t be surprised when we see through the bullshit.
You’ve been suckered so hard, I bet your ass is sore.
Oh, and one more thing. It’s nice to see you’ve proved yourself the nice little sellout once again. Pegged you at MS, pegged you again.
So, so sad.
It’s after midnight, I need sleep.
I retire the moniker of sellout for Scoble. I think he earnestly believes what he says.
So instead of sellout, it should say “eager to please naive sucker.”