This Chron story on the bloggers at the Democratic Convention may come a bit late in the game (not exactly atypical for our hometown paper, of course), but it has the virtue of being non-condescending. It even contains a decent insight:
By reducing live coverage of the conventions, the major television networks have “given the bloggers a jump-start they never would have gotten otherwise,” said Thomas McPhail, professor of media studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
“The bloggers have taken advantage of that. (Television network) management does not understand that you don’t want to give such a golden opportunity to attract readers to the Internet.”
I don’t believe I’d seen anyone bring that up before. It should be noted that C-SPAN and PBS are reporting good ratings, as they’re the places to go on the tube in the absence of the major networks, but the point is still valid – there’s unmet demand for this kind of coverage, and people are finding it where they can.
Also to the good, there’s a sidebar with all of the credentialed bloggers listed. It’s too bad there isn’t an easily-accessible list of delegates who are also bloggers, though that doesn’t explain why a URL wasn’t given for Cate Read even though the story specifically mentioned her. It’s a good piece anyway, so check it out.
If there was an unmet need for coverage, why did people tune out in record numbers?
Sorry, that article was a snoozer except for the quote from the Technorati dude.