David MillerThe Beehive State Balancing Act
When Cliff Lyon learned that I was the new editor of BlogNetNews/Utah he asked if I would not list OneUtah as a liberal blog since the goal here is to present a full range of Utah perspectives. He also invited me to be an author on One Utah to help balance out the currently liberal leaning of the site. I was interested in the offer, but at first I did not know what I would write that would match the quality and tone of the content here.
I’m surprised at how soon I thought of a post that would (I hope) fit the tenor of OneUtah. Interestingly the topic was suggested in the original invitation to become an author. One of the things that has fascinated me here in the reddest of red states is that the liberal bloggers dominate the discussion here despite the decidedly conservative bent of our population as a whole. I don’t consider myself qualified to speculate on why this would be but it gnaws at me because I think that the blogosphere should ideally reflect reality, or else reality should shift to more closely match the blogosphere. In other words, in a conservative area the overall tenor of the blogs should be conservative. If the blogs are liberal in an area identified as conservative then either the liberal blogs should begin to be balanced with conservative blogs, or else the dominant liberal blogs should begin to have an effect on the conservatism of the community around them.
Here at OneUtah we are supposed to have an open forum with commentary from Liberals and Conservatives. Cliff recognizes that it is not very well balanced even though he has invited very conservative authors, such as Paul Mero, to participate. I have noticed at BNN/Utah that the most influential blogs each week are almost always liberal voices such as the Utah Amicus and JM Bell. Both are excellent blogs that I have followed for quite some time, but in a conservative state like ours I would expect some conservative voices to rise to the top of the influence rankings as often as the liberal blogs do.
I know that we have some good blogs in Utah with conservative perspectives. I would invite our conservative authors to find ways to make your voices heard within the online representations of the state. That might require some kind of organization, or else it might simply require an awareness that this medium is only growing in influence and should be cultivated if the conservative voices are to have the influence that would be expected in our bright red state.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I only speak for myself, but due to the Bush administration’s many crimes and abuses of power there is a lot to blog about. I would argue with people in person, except that it’s not as convenient as blogging and usually ends with an invitation to STFU. I hope you can join us for some heated (and intelligent, I hope) discussions. Please ignore the occasional insults and ad hominem attacks, not worthy of us but it’s the price of free speech.
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Welcome David and thank you again. I’ll echo what RIch said…the price of free speech.
Rich is also right about conservative blogs. All are clubby, all require hoop jumping to post, most moderate, and most will ban you for disagreeing (I can prove this by the way. I’ve been kicked off more blogs than I can count for making factual statements respectfully.
I guess progressive tend to be more secure and unafraid of criticism.
btw: I’d like to think OneUtah is one of the more influential blogs. How is “influence” measured on BNN?
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:17 pm
“I guess progressive tend to be more secure and unafraid of criticism”.
Oh, uh huh.
Keep guessing!
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I have always assumed that my blog would be perceived as conservative although I try to keep an open mind and avoid falling into the trap of simply echoing a party line on any issue. Though I have seen plenty of blogs that require hoop jumping (on the right and on the left) I personally dislike the practice and keep my blog as open as possible - the only moderation is if the comments are from people commenting for the first time or if the comments look like spam. My policy on moderating is to allow all comments that do not appear to be spam.
I’d like to think that it is an example of how open all serious participants in the public conversation should be. I know there are other blogs on both sides of the aisle that are equally open, but I don’t think that there is enough crossover participation in commenting and I suspect that this is an indication that there is not enough crossover in reading. (I have noticed that Rich comments far and wide - he sets a good example that way.)
As to the question of influence on BNN - I don’t know the formula that calculates influence because it is kept secret in order to prevent people from gaming the system. My experience suggests that posting regularly is important in the formula, but there are obviously other factors. (I can only guess, but the things that I would use if I were devising a formula would include number of comments per post, links in and out, speaking to the major themes of the conversation - hot topics - and who knows what else.) Like I said, the formula is secret - if I knew what it was I’d probably be able to stay in the top five or ten all the time.
July 24th, 2008 at 9:50 am
BTW, has anyone else noticed that One Utah posts have disappeared off the Utah Bloghive? Not just out of the “left leaning” category, but gone completely for several days now. I sent them an e-mail, no answer yet.
July 24th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Hey when I have time to keep my blog up, which unfortunately I have been too busy of late. I have always been in the top 5 of Blognet News and often in the top 3. So it isn’t just liberal blogs that people are reading.
July 24th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Ken:
Yup, now that folks can soon stop crying over the Bush years and the damage wrought during that time, we can go to blogs like yours for a good laugh. Keep up the good work!
Why heck, I even visited redstate.com today just for the pleasure of watching those idiots fall all over themselves trying to spin a good light on their boy McSurge while Obama pulls in the substantive glory in Germany and the Middle East. The redstatesers failed miserably, which gave me incredible glee.
PS Try not to blow your fingers off or set your neighborhood ablaze while playing with your firecrackers tonight!! Haha!!!
July 25th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Ken,
I guess I had not taken note of that since you’ve been relatively silent lately. Still, in Utah I would expect conservative blogs to make up 2 of the top 5 every week. Maybe you have some tips for other conservative bloggers.
July 25th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
I have some tips for all bloggers. DUMP BLOGGER.COM its very clumsy for commenter and extremely buggy.
Everyday, serious bloggers move to the far superior WordPress over Google’s BlogSpot.
Oh, yeah, and let people post freely without logging in or providing e-mail address.
OneUtah has been wide-open for 3 years and we do not have major problems with spam or non-sense (excepting Who is Watching…)