Winston Review, No. 18 from Ghost of a flea
Writing is not neccessarily something to be ashamed of -- but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. - Robert A. Heinlein One of the odd things about meeting bloggers is the Gibsonian shock of meatspace conversation... [Read More]

Tracked on November 6, 2004 12:41 PM

Winston Review, No. 18 from Ghost of a flea
Writing is not neccessarily something to be ashamed of -- but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. - Robert A. Heinlein One of the odd things about meeting bloggers is the Gibsonian shock of meatspace conversation... [Read More]

Tracked on November 6, 2004 12:41 PM

Winston Review, No. 18 from Ghost of a flea
Writing is not neccessarily something to be ashamed of -- but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. - Robert A. Heinlein One of the odd things about meeting bloggers is the Gibsonian shock of meatspace conversation... [Read More]

Tracked on November 6, 2004 12:41 PM

Such a kettle of fish you've opened. Here's the short answer: don't try to control blogdom. Reference point here, as well as the ton of discussion of this post on the BlogsCanada site here. Anyone in Canadian politics today should be aware of the recent attempt at manipulating the Canadian blogosphere the Lord Voldemort recently attempted.

One final word: the blogosphere will and does counterbalance mainstream media in Canada already. During the next election, commentary will be even better and stronger. What should politicians do? Just keep talking so we have lots to write about.

Here are the two links which didn't work as html code above:

http://heartofcanada.typepad.com/randomthoughts/2004/10/kinsellas_game_.html

and all of the discussion here:

http://www.blogscanada.ca/egroup/CommentView.aspx?guid=318771cd-d95c-4471-b7c9-340b72d6b78d

Thanks TZ - but I think that you're wrong. We are looking at the blogosphere from the wrong end. In Canada, awareness is still miniscule. Part of the job is directing readership to conservative bloggers - to me, this is where a political party can take an active role, without attempting to control (which, I agree, would be futile and have consequences).

Hey, nobody said they can't advertise or endorse. That's not the same as manipulating or controlling.

Actually, I'll add something. I already get press releases from some media outlets and other organizations. Information sharing is good, but it can also bite a blogger in the butt pretty badly if it's not reliable. Reference (again) Lord Voldemort.

The Flea is going to attract more than 40k unique visitors this month. Add Colby Cosh, Damian Penny and Kathy Shaidle and we are moving up to circulation numbers for a small city. And there are more than 30 bloggers on the Red Ensign roll...

I think we are looking at a virtuous cirle here. The must be millions of Canadians looking for the real alternative media and many of those are Conservative Party members. The aim should be to promote a wider conversation and particularly of a kind that gives the socons, paleocons and neocons an opportunity to work out points of agreement and cooperation. I believe that conversation is well underway thanks to Ezra Levant and everybody writing at The Shotgun.

But this should be our primary main objective: bring Fox News to Canadian basic cable. Without the support of CBS rivals on television and radio it is doubtful even Matt Drudge could have called enough attention to the yeoman work of LGF, Powerline and INDC Journal.

And another thought... when a national newspaper asks to reprint my writing they should offer to pay for it.

Encouragement:

Invite political bloggers to events, just like the press. And not just friendly ones, if Mr. Lefto-Blogger thrashes you, you still got "air-time" and right-blogger will probabably post on the post, if it was unfair or misleading.

Give short, pithy, focussed enterviews to bloggers on single issue topics. Supply/make available: data,pics, quotes, in computer friendly formats.

Mention blogs in internal party propaganda, you may only be reaching the party faithful, but again, it's "air time" and eyeballs, and you'll attract not only the party faithful, but also people looking over their shoulders and wondering why they are laughing like loons at the screen.

Send bloggers you like, and to whom the email is relevant, email "heads up" to legitimate press articles you want more mindshare on. Even the opposition's stuff. What may play well to the Librano's internally will send the conservative faithful climbing the walls in wailing rage and frustation, if they find it.

i.e. Sending Kate perfidious Liberal dog breeding stories, is relatively good, to Andrew Coyne, less good.

Blogs are disparate, and quirky, so encourage funny blogs, deadly serious ones, wierd ones, the paranoid ones... They all have an audience.

Encouragement could stretch all the way with making sure a really good, funny, blogger has a decent day job. So (s)he can blog at night.

Counterblogging: Not trolls, but articulate, pithy answerers and commenters are worth a lot. And you could with a couple of people use even "enemy" blogs to drive traffic subtlely the way you want it, not link whoring, not trolling, just good reality based responses to posts.

i.e. Enemy Post on Blog Z asserts A, friendly commenter asserts, intelligently, -A. Blog attracts the faithful to rant about -A.

Blog C, says hey look at the nutbars in Blog Z, and demolishes them.

Information warfare, baby.

Not to mention - the Conservatives need a blog of their own, if only to provide an excuse to link to supportive writers and opinion leaders in the US as well as Canada.

I like some of what Fred said. About the conservatives having their own blog -- ok, if it's not lame. A lot of party and candidate blogs are horrible -- poorly written and not at all timely. Belinda's blog was really bad. Reg Alcock's blog read like a party press release everyday. I could go on.

You are all forgetting the real power behind blogs. Their readers.
Encourage your readers to send things to their friends in e-mail. Ask them to go vote on polls. Give them e-mail and snail-mail addresses where they can send letters to editors and legislators... and suggest points for the letters (don't write letters for them, the editors will ignore that and, worse, you'll be insulting your readers). We've all got a few readers that aren't other bloggers or spam-bots. Ask for their help.

I launched my blog (and website) about 3 months ago and am frustrated by the lack of interest on the Canadian side of the border. I cater to both Americans and Canadians but I'm only getting about 25 unique Canadians visitors per day. With respect to my fellow bloggers who are far more experienced than myself I have found the reception from many for inclusion on their blog rolls limited (most don't even respond to my emails). I know my content isn't as seasoned as the pros but if we want the Canadian blogosphere to grow we need to give Canadians a variety of conservative perspectives. 3 months of tireless work and little to show for it. It is frustrating and costly. I remain optimistic...

www.conservativelife.com

Ditto on the Flea's complaint that we're not paid for posts printed in national papers!

Ferrethouse...I linked you.

About Canadian's not being plugged into blogs, I don't target my blog towards Americans at all, although I have some American readers. Nevertheless, I think a lot of Canadians like to lurk on blogs -- not commenting or blogging but reading and following the blogs. They must be because somebody's driving up my site hits, not just other bloggers.

For the moment we are some distance behind the US in terms of blog rollout.

A couple of reasons. First, the MSM in Canada is more monolithic than in the US. Which means that they are not very interested in new voices.

Second, the numbers for people like Flea, Cosh, Penny and even Coyne, are tiny. I am delighted that Flea is hitting 40 k uniques a month (about 10 times my own number) but LGF has 100,000 a day and Kos and Instapundit are in the 8 million a month range. Yikes.

Third, Canadian bloggers are just now becoming, as it were, self-aware. Our swarm capacity is just developing and our access to mainstream media is only beginning.

A few suggestions: it would make sense for anyone in the blogosphere who has access to email lists for media to share them round.

It would make sense for right of center bloggers to not only promote their own blogs but to promote other people's blogs.

It would make sense to, when a story is developing , like Special K, to use the media lists to alert the ever lazy Canadian media to the material.

It would make no sense at all for the Conservative Party to have a blog. By definition it would be lame because the Party would be accountable for it. Thus nothing of interest would be published for fear of it showing up in a campaign ad in a couple of years.

It would make lots of sense for a few Conservative aides to do a group blog - anonomously - and let us know wtf is going on with the Conservative Party.

Blogging and "the official postion" don't mix well.

Last but not least, I think Conservative Life is interesting and a wonderfully diverse blog. Good going ferrethouse. That said, you have to ask for the link...no mail and no hits gets no link.

Meanwhile, Billy is wandering up to the starting gate.

I have to agree witha previous commenter, starting "official" blogs is a lame-oid waste of time, we can all read press releases in the original somewhere else, if we have the inclination.

Blogs add value by providing pointers to information, and by adding editorial comment and context.

The blogs you contribute to or help don't need huge readerships either, it is sufficient to reach opinion leaders and be read by the right MSM types (like say, Steyn), to have huge quiet influence on spin. ( Or, on the dark side, if you can make Carolyn Parrish say something stupid, that's gold.)

Hence my comment about having "party" commentators, bright witty people, who (part-time, 1hr a day) read & post comments anonymously, (see your nerds bwp's, don't be traced right back to party HQ) can make off the cuff replies that are not-cut and paste from the party handbook, and help inform. It's like real time spin control without the official playbook because you aren't official on the web.

It can serve as early warning of how something is spinning out of your control, and allows, if you have good media team, to respond/prepare to accusations before they hit the press. Imagine having your experts primed and ready to respond inside the same news cycle, because you read a comment war on a blog 2 days ago.

Officialness is the kiss of death, unless you are refering to a website which specifically provides official PR or info.

I dont' agree about official party blogs. Of course, they are going to be bland and non-contraversial. That doesn't matter.

What matters is the sidebar, and being able to click through from the official party site, to the official campaign blog through to the real meat - to Colby or to "Let It Bleed" or the "Shotgun". Even include prominent US bloggers, to introduce Canadians to the "rest of the story" on the US news streaming through the filters of the NYT and CNN. It could have a significant impact on the perceptions of the US that are exploited by Liberal and NDP members. I know that this space has introduced some of my family and friends to information that floored them. They suspected they were recieving a slant - but had no appreciation for how blatant it has become.

So, when it comes to official party blogs, don't think "central gathering point" - think "gateway".

Well, I am certainly ready to contribute in my own small way, and with the time I can spare, to the growth of a substantial and well frequented conservative Canadian blogosphere. Have been thinking about how the influence of conservative blogs could and should spread in Canada, inspired by the tremendous success of blogs in the U.S. during this presidential cycle.

An anecdote leading to comments on this issue. Attended a dinner party a short while back. In attendance was a mid to hi level apparatchik in a fairly important Fed bureaucracy. Her job, as best I could tell, is media flak for the head of her organization. We had a, um, discussion about things political, which finally got to the question of blogs, which was raised by me.

Her initial reaction was, of course, "such nonsense, it's the internet, full of crap!". Realizing that I actually had some knowledge of the success of blogs in the U.S., she followed up with "Canadians aren't ready for blogs, they'll never make inroads here", once again demonstrating the too-typical condescending attitude of the liberal "mainstream" to the citizenry. By the time the party broke up she was looking seriously rattled about the prospect of blogs challenging the cozy govt-MSM relationship in Canada.

I tell ya, the liberal establishment in this country is ripe for a good bruising by a vibrant and well informed blogosphere. I do not think a party-sanctioned blog with links to independent bloggers would be a good idea. Here's why. All it would take would be for one linked blogger to go a bit far with his/her commentary on one of any number of subjects and the MSM would be puking their bile about how the Conservatives support "offensive" political ideas. You would also get Lord Valdemort types getting supposed conservative blogs linked to that site, which would then start posting any manner of stuff, just to cause the Cons trouble.

No, I think it would be better to go with a conservative bloggers' "clearing house" site, independent from any political party. The added value is a discussion through blogging that would be free of any hint of party attachments. Hey' i would like to criticize the Cons too, on occasion. I wonder if the Red Ensign group could be molded into such a "clearing house"? Ah, the Red Ensign, nothing like that old flag to get liberals soiling themselves.

p.s. How can The Conservatives contribute to the growth of blog influence? They can talk about it. If Stephen Harper let go with a "the Meatriarchy reports that" and maybe a "Freeway to Serfdom" has revealed that, and the next thing you know, bang! Millions of hits. Of course, with fame would come responsibility. Are we ready?

I'm not sure I'd agree that a party leader or even a candidate would cite a blog as a source, in part, because blogs can be unpredictable. Can you imagine if a candidate cited a blog post and then someone in a debate or public forum said, "Is this the same source that also wrote xxx offensive thing?" (or whatever) Too volatile. However, they can make reference to people, discussions, bloggers, media, or have other ways to discuss these kinds of scenarios.

The problem I have run into with both politicians and MSM is that they don't really know enough about blogs. If the party -- any party -- wants to understand about blogs, they should invite a roundtable of bloggers in to talk about them. Pick the blogger's brains, read their blogs, and get to know the bloggers better, especially on a local level. If I were a candidate, and I had a good blogger in my riding, I'd want to know more about that blogger, and I'd follow the blog carefully.

The other thing about bloggers is that they're not like media in that they can always get credentialled for events (although a party could credential bloggers as a form of media if they wanted to). On the other hand, bloggers can show up anywhere unnoticed, too, and then write about it. Better to know the bloggers in your area than not, I'd say.

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