{"id":90921,"date":"2006-10-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-02T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2006\/10\/02\/bloggers-hit-the-campaign-trail-at-what-cost\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:16:37","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:16:37","slug":"bloggers-hit-the-campaign-trail-at-what-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2006\/10\/02\/bloggers-hit-the-campaign-trail-at-what-cost\/","title":{"rendered":"Bloggers Hit the Campaign Trail at What Cost?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The very title of the new book by liberal Daily Kos blogger Markos Moulitsas\u2014Crashing the Gate<\/em>\u2014reflects the blogosphere\u2019s jaundiced view of the insider political establishment: it\u2019s a \u201cBeltway Mafia\u201d composed of interest groups, political consultants, and journalists.<\/p>\n\n

According to many bloggers, the dreaded mainstream media, (or MSM) have failed to reflect the voices and needs of citizens and are really just another establishment interest group. Consequently, the blogosophere has assumed the mantle in many eyes as the more authentic independent watchdog providing checks and balances on corrupt and well-entrenched institutional power.There is little doubt it has injected more voices into the public debate.<\/p>\n\n

But with the crucial 2006 political season now entering the homestretch, bloggers are taking an increasingly active role in several key races, and that raises a new troubling question. Are bloggers straying from their self-proclaimed roles as critics and scrutinizers of the establishment and becoming instead de facto appendages of political campaigns?<\/p>\n\n

That phenomenon began in earnest in 2004 with the the Deaniacs, liberal bloggers who helped make Howard Dean the leading presidential contender for the Democratic Party, that is, of course, until the primaries began. <\/strong>In the same year, conservative bloggers were given credit for helping South Dakota Republican John Thune triumph over Tom Daschle, then the top Senate Democrat.<\/p>\n\n

This year, bloggers already played a key role in helping largely unknown anti-war cable executive Ned Lamont engineer a surprise primary defeat of incumbent Connecticut Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman, who had fallen from being the party\u2019s vice-presidential nominee in 2000.<\/p>\n\n

The relationship of bloggers to campaigns has become an issue in the hotly contested Virginia senatorial race where incumbent Republican Senator George Allen is battling former Navy Secretary James Webb. After Lowell Feld \u2014 a blogger who is paid by Webb\u2019s campaign \u2014 posted a controversial item linking Allen with white supremacists, a Webb spokesman was forced to acknowledge that \u201cLowell doesn\u2019t speak for the campaign,\u201d according to a report in the Washington Post.<\/p>\n\n

Even if bloggers are not formally on someone\u2019s payroll their partisan efforts may raise questions both about blogging and campaign ethics. Indeed, the line between official campaign work and blogging for the campaign outside an official capacity is not always clearly drawn.Conservative critics have charged that Feld and his business partner, who have been blogging on a site not formally affiliated with Webb\u2019s campaign, may be guilty of breaking election finance laws because blogs are a way to disseminate political messages without campaigns having to actually pay for them.<\/p>\n\n

Aside from the legal questions, all this raises the issue of whether bloggers are abandoning an independent referee\u2019s role for a chance to jump onto the playing field and become active campaign partisans. For his part, Bill Mitchell, an online editor at The Poynter Institute in Florida, says the primary ethical prerequisite for bloggers is simply to disclose their interests and allegiances. \u201cI believe they can still be effective if they\u2019re clear about their own loyalties and about the various stakeholders in the blog,\u201d Mitchell told the Project.<\/p>\n\n

However one views this phenomenon, the trend toward making blogs an active element of political campaigns seems likely to continue and grow. Potential 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently hired a blog outreach adviser. And the National Journal has reported that another White House hopeful, John McCain, has lured Howard Dean\u2019s former webmaster to his campaign staff while his PAC is using a well-known conservative blogger as a consultant. Indeed, the story on how the alliance between bloggers and politicians evolves over the next few campaign cycles will be one to watch. And most likely to blog about.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of those in the blogosphere see themselves as watchdogs arrayed against an insular political establishment dominated by consultants, interests groups, and the mainstream media. But with bloggers taking an increasingly active role in some of the key 2006 political races, are they sacrificing that independence to become part of the system they decry?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[],"multiSectionReport":[],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[52,339,332,336,326],"tags":[],"bylines":[2199],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"level_of_effort":[],"primary_audience":[],"information_type":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[458],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[],"research-teams":[527],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-90921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election-news-2","category-election-news-1","category-media-industry","category-news-coverage","category-news-media-trends","bylines-pew-research-center-journalism-media-staff","formats-report","research-teams-journalism"],"label":false,"post_parent":0,"word_count":612,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2006\/10\/02\/bloggers-hit-the-campaign-trail-at-what-cost\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"report_materials":"","report_pagination":{"current_post":null,"next_post":null,"previous_post":null,"pagination_items":[]},"parent_info":{"parent_title":"Bloggers Hit the Campaign Trail at What Cost?","parent_id":90921},"materialsOrdered":[],"chaptersOrdered":[],"partsOrdered":[],"partsEnabled":false,"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Bloggers Hit the Campaign Trail at What Cost?","description":"Many of those in the blogosphere see themselves as watchdogs arrayed against an insular political establishment dominated by consultants, interests groups, and the mainstream media. 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