Blogging In Spidey's Shoes

I don't really care about what happened to Eason Jordan. It's good that bloggers were able to do something about a situation that mainstream media wouldn't touch, but it wasn't something I was going to blog about myself. Rathergate? Yeah, that was interesting. So what.

I do care about what happens for Terri Schindler-Schiavo. She could is scheduled to die. Famous newsmedia folks losing six-figure jobs doesn't rally compassion much for me. A disabled woman sentenced to death by a court via starvation and dehydration catches my attention a whole lot more. If I blog about her situation, it could affect whether she lives or dies, not whether she gets to buy one more Armani at Barney's of New York. Who the frick cares about some news anchor's cravats? Honestly.

The Eason Jordan story was notable, in my opinion, because of the blog-swarm effect. Right Wing Nuthouse, however, has contrasted blog swarms about Eason Jordan and Terri Schindler-Schiavo and found some striking differences. While over 200 bloggers are now covering Terri's story on a regular basis and making a difference for her -- a life or death difference -- RWN points out that the blogs with greatest popularity have yet to do much with the story:

A check of some ecosystem stats may be revealing. Blogs for Terri is ranked #123 with more than 1200 daily visitors.  Technorati reveals nearly 800 individual posts mentioning Blogs for Terri (more than 5400 posts on Terri Schiavo with an unknown number of those in favor of her euthanization).

Compare those stats with ones for Eason Jordan’s story.  The Ecosysetm [sic] shows the Jordan story tapering off. In its heyday, however, the Easongate site received more than 8500 hits a day, which would have put it into the top 50 sites on the TLB.  However, a Technorati search turns up something interesting. Taking into account the difference in time frames for the two stories (each having lasted approximately three weeks), the number of posts on the subject are almost identical.. “Terri” stories were more than 5400 while “Jordan” stories number 5600 to date.

I guess the question that needs to be asked is why was Eason Jordan given the boot while the end of Terri’s life could be merely hours away?... The point is that once you get above a certain level in the ecosysetm, a deadening insularity is evident in what the individual sites post about. [Link]

I read Instapundit, sometimes, Vodkapundit a little more often, and I occasionally glance around the beltway. What stands out about most of the higher beings in the ecosytem, in my opinion, is their striking lack of originality in writing. Many operate on a "cool links" basis, pointing to the interesting novelty item or hot news story of the day. Sometimes a more original post might pop up...rarely an insightful longer piece. For me, they lack reflective vigour and adequate variety. If they were a diet, they'd be deficient in nutrients.

Pointing to Ecosystem higher beings such as Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, RWN suggests that a kind of "mainstream media" effect is occurring in the blogosphere, whereby people look to the most popular blogs for direction and information or an "official take" on an issue. In other words, if Glenn Reynolds said it, it must be important. If he didn't, then who cares? I don't read blogs that way, myself. I filter through a lot of news stories on my own -- many through Google News, reading multiple versions of the same story and noting their various facts and angles.

I'll add information gleaned from blogs to the process of news filtering that goes on in my own head, but I'm not anyone's blog-pet. I don't rely on obedience commands and link-pats from ecosystem higher beings, but I get by nonetheless.

So, it must be disconcerting for bloggers like Reynolds to be in Spidey's shoes, realizing that with great power can come great responsibility. Unfortunately, the "it's my blog, and I can link if I want to" attitude remains ever-present in blogdom, with bloggers defensively asserting that they don't have to write or not write about anything in particular. It's all up to them, and, of course, it really is.

That's why, ultimately, blogs are reflections of their bloggers. It's also why blogs can be no different from mainstream media. Popular bloggers write what sells, what attracts, what hip item will bring in the hits, often (but not always) with a little titillation in the sidebar for added zip. Terri's story isn't very zippy or hip by comparison, is it? While a couple of higher ups in the ecosystem actually have given the story the barest of nods, the posts are, at best ambivalent or, at worst, inadequate and confused. Here's Boing Boing's search engine comeback on the topic:

Posts containing schiavo
Searched for "schiavo"
I know nothing of this "schiavo" of which you speak. Despite the enormous breadth, depth and obscurity of the Boing Boing posts over the years, your oddball query has us stumped. Have you considered the possibility that "schiavo" is a nonsense phrase that is the product of your fevered imagination? Cos that's my bet.

Oh, and did I say inadequate? Of course, Free Republic has aggregated posts on the issue.

In blogdom, whizzes and bangs or even blog-banners about social security tend to go over better than discussions of hydrocephalus shunts (that's going to produce a flurry of jokes and posts about hydrocepalus shunts in the most defensive of bloggers, I'm sure). Of course, sometimes bloggers do write about these issues, even on a more personal note, but that's not the same as blog swarming the issue full-force.

It's too bad, really, because blogs actually can be powerful sources of autonomous text and archiving, and a blog swarm can make a difference. However, if bloggers insist on constantly worshipping at the feet of higher beings, they'll perpetually undermine the power and influence of their own blogs. It's bloggers' own fault, really. The more they reward higher beings with their attention, the more power they grant higher beings to decide what stories are worth reading about and which causes are worth supporting.

In the end, blogging inevitably becomes tied to the identity and values of the individual blogger and that person's reason for blogging. How blogger's choose to exercise their blog-power might be construed by some as a moral decision and by others, not. As in the case of Terri, however, it can sometimes be plainly obvious what some bloggers choose to promote as compared with what they choose to ignore. In terms of super-bloggers, Terri is largely being ignored.

Perhaps, though, ultra elites see Terri's issue has one that will not add to the success of their blogs. Successful blogging also has to do with how you learn to manipulate your own site traffic. Certain topics will boost blog traffic with nearly parasympathetic reactivity. Write something like "HARDCORE PORN" in your blog, and your traffic will increase post haste. I can't tell you the number of people who, looking for nudie blogs, have sourced out my post on why they shouldn't be reading nudie blogs. Heh. On the other hand, hot topics and cool links can't be all that a great blog is about, not for me, anyway, but in blogdom, often cool rules, making the blogosphere more like Blogdom High, where cross-links perpetuate your clique.

I have to ask, is it cool or trendy to be in favour of helping a disabled woman and her family fight for her right to live? Will it boost your readership or links? Is it too eclectic, falling outside that deadening insularity of your typical target topics? Should super-bloggers have a pro bono blog post policy, wherein they blog about the charitable or socially conscious concern of the day?

There is another possibility, of course. Perhaps topics like Terri's plight are too emotional for politics-savvy pundits. I mean, we wouldn't want any of them to cry or show their personal belief system. That might turn off some readers faster than posting the words to kumbayah. Pundits are hard-heads, and blogs can become overloaded with too much testosterone, regardless of the gender of the blogger.

I think blogging about Terri is very cool and rewarding -- hopefully, for her. Unfortunately, for the bloggy masses, if higher beings don't think it's cool, what, then, does it really matter? In the mean time, the 200 or so BlogsforTerri bloggers will do their level best to win attention and justice for a woman who scores too low in the news ratings to make it in the world of mainstream blogs, and whose plight is too -- je ne sais quoi -- on which to take a stand.

Instead, BlogsforTerri has been turning their attention to the mainstream media, some of whom still know a big story when the see it.  BlogsforTerri also has raised money for purchased ads. While they will keep working right up until Terri's very real deadline, a little boost from the all-star blogs would be welcome before it's too late for anyone to do anything more.

[Via The 128th Carnival of the Vanities at Belief Seeking Freedom]