Bloggers offer plenty of choices for DNC coverage

In 2004, the Democratic National Convention offered press credentials to about 30 bloggers.

Back then, even though the blogosphere was already burgeoning, they were treated as a sideshow. News coverage looked at these online commentators like zoo animals - showing them furiously typing away in corners of the convention hall.

This time around, blogs have come of age and the Democrats are bending over backward to open the doors of Denver's Pepsi Center to bloggers for the Aug. 25-28 event. More than 120 blogs will be represented at the convention.

So, if CNN or the New York Times (or, say it ain't so, The Gazette) isn't providing the convention coverage you're looking for, you could try Beliefnet, a national, nonpartisan religion and spirituality Web site, or Disaboom, a site focused on the interests and issues of disabled people, or My Left Nutmeg, a New Hampshire political blog. Or Blue Mass Group, or Crooks and Liars, or a hundred other sites.

"It's a different environment," said Aaron Myers, the director of online communications at the convention. "Blogs are news sources for lots of people."

You'll find views and voices on the convention coming from every angle... except maybe the right. Most of the credentialed blogs are explicitly Democratic or "progressive," a few are nonpartisan or apolitical. Half of the list is made up of the "DemConvention State Blogger Corps" - that's one blog from every state, plus U.S. territories like Guam and the Virgin Islands.

"We were really looking for blogs that know their state well," Myers said. "It helps us have a larger audience and a very specific audience in a lot of cases."

Colorado's entry in this blogging free-for-all is Square State, a 3-year-old progressive group blog that focuses on Colorado politics.

So what will you find on Square State that you can't get from the thousands of other news organizations that will be at the convention? John Erhardt, Square State's managing editor, isn't 100 percent sure yet.

"I was on a conference call earlier with a bunch of the other bloggers that are coming," he said. "Many of them expressed that they don't know what they will be doing. I don't know what I'm going to do and we're just going to see what happens and try to find out and cover what's going on."

That's not to say that Erhardt and his fellow Square Staters (four bloggers from the site will switch-hit at the convention) don't have goals. The state bloggers will be seated with their state's delegates, so Erhardt is hoping to capture their views and do some networking. He hopes to grab Colorado politicians for Q&A sessions on the site. And he's hoping to stay well clear of some of the shouting and screaming that goes on around political conventions.

"In terms of how news is reported and how much it's dominated by television coverage, the political convention ... does seem like a show," Erhardt said. "I think there's going to be so many other meetings happening, networking happening, things that aren't even happening in the Pepsi Center."

What you will find at Square State and its blog brethren is a point of view.

"We're proud of our bias," Erhardt said. "I feel just fine with writing with a biased or partisan point of view."

Sometimes, he said, you can have a bigger impact when you're inside the tent.

"If you look at what I write about and how I write about it, I think I have a very good track record of telling it the way it is," Erhardt said.

"I highly disagree with the term ‘cheerleader' - there have been plenty of times when I have called out Democrats for decisions I've disagreed with."

Nor is this blogging evolution limited to Denver and the Democratic Convention. Republicans plan to credential more than 200 blogs for their Sept. 1-4 convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.

"In 2004, we only had 12, so we're excited to welcome more than 200 this year," said Melissa Subbotin, deputy press secretary for the Republican Convention. "Our goal was to interface with as many Americans as possible."

Back in Colorado, Square State gets 600-800 unique visitors a day - that's how readers are measured in the largely anonymous world of the Internet - or 42,000 page views a month. Those aren't big numbers compared to the readership of an average newspaper or the viewers of a local TV station, but Erhardt's readers are interested and engaged in what he's writing about: local politics.

Erhardt used to post on big national blogs like Daily Kos, but felt like he was just one drip in a river there. At Square State, the 35-year-old former engineer feels he can make a difference.

"My focus is definitely on Colorado," he said. "It's part of a long-term strategy of helping deal with local issues and helping good candidates get elected in Colorado."