Saturday, January 20, 2007

Blogs Part Of State House Press Corp?

While blogs aren't officially recognized as part of Indiana's State House press corp, at least one media member includes them on his list. The Indiana Legislative Insight's Ed Feigenbaum publishes a list of media covering State House events at the start of the legislative session. This year he includes a few blogs for the first time. Feigenbaum writes:

We hesitated before treating blogs as media in this feature but then again, folks wondered about whether we were “media” when your favorite newsletter ventured onto the scene at the end of 1988 as well. In the spirit of the piece we treated you to last Summer about the importance of blogs in Indiana politics and government, we’ve decided to mention a few blogs (unassociated with traditional media outlets, such as the ones noted above) here.

We do so not because they are necessarily unbiased objective observers of the political and governmental scene in more than simply one narrow niche, but because they are frequently updated, add to the debate, and often break news (and spread some really fascinating rumors) themselves.

Blogs included on Feigenbaum's list, in addition to Advance Indiana, are: Fort Wayne Observed, Frugal Hoosiers, Masson's Blog, Indiana Law Blog and Taking Down Words

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blogs SHOULD be considered media because it creates a dialogue among the people. Who needs a town cryer when you can post it immediately. If you can sort through some of the regular kooks, and they float to the top pretty fast, you can find interesting observations and facts come forward.

AI is the first blog I go to and it is my favorite. You should be proud of your work.

Anonymous said...

Blogs do have their place, and they're a good part of the media mix.

But until they start attending meetings and such, like mainstream reporters (not often enough) do, they're not going to get the respect.

Few, if any bloggers, do it fulltime for a living. There's the difference.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Thanks, anon 5:03.