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Monday, July 11, 2005

Blogs Revolutionizing Supreme Court Nomination Battle

Posted by Bob Brigham

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Political groups preparing to battle over the first U.S. Supreme Court nomination in 11 years have a powerful new tool -- Internet blogs -- to spread information quickly and influence decision makers without relying on traditional media.

Web logs likely numbering in the dozens provide a way for the thoughtful and the passionate to publish their views. Politicians are taking notice as they prepare for the first high court nomination fight since the Internet became common in American households.

First of all, blogs "numbering in the dozens" shows this reporter doesn't grasp the scale of what is coming. But more importantly, the key isn't going to be blogs ability to "spread information" but the Open Source Oppo Research that will occur at a level that has never before been seen. There is one quote in the story that gets at this:

Steve Clemons, who publishes a political blog http:/www.thewashingtonnote.com, says that once Bush names someone "you are going to see the blogs go crazy" digging up information and in many cases "outrunning" mainstream media.

In the Supreme Court battle, the role of bloggers won't just be to cut and paste the stuff coming from the players in DC. The key will be that any google-monkey can be a player. This is the post-broadcast era, it isn't about spreading information. The best dirt isn't sitting in some DC Oppo Research file cabinet, it is yet to be found.

Posted at 12:28 PM in Supreme Court | Technorati

Comments

Speaking of blogs revolutionizing the nomination battle, check out the Clerks blog from Think Progress. They've invited a bunch of actual Supreme Court clerks to comment on the nomination battle, placing it in that gray area between the average blogger and the official "experts". Shoudl be interesting.

Posted by: ACDC [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 19, 2005 04:38 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment