CARL BIALIK and ELIZABETH WEINSTEIN of the Wall Street Journal on Meet the Bloggers:
The Democratic Party is widening its media tent for the Boston convention. For the first time ever, Web loggers, or bloggers, are being accredited for a national political convention.
While scores of bloggers will be covering the convention, only about 35 have official accreditation, meaning they can access the main Fleet Center hall and use a dedicated workspace. (These bloggers will be dwarfed by an estimated 15,000 accredited journalists from traditional outlets.) But blogs’ hallmarks – quick publishing, links, commentary, reader feedback and light or no outside editing — mean bloggers could bring new approaches and a wide range of voices to covering an event steeped in tradition.
JENNIFER 8. LEE of The New York Times on Web Diarists Are Now Official Members of Convention Press Corps:
Even as many networks are reducing their coverage of the increasingly predictable political conventions, the political blogs, which have become a fruitful alternative for individual voices, have been ablaze over the prospect of officially covering conventions for the first time. Ms. Merritt is one of about three dozen bloggers who have been given press credentials for the Democratic convention in Boston, which begins Monday. Another, Ana Marie Cox from the Washington gossip site Wonkette.com, will be working as a correspondent for MTV.
Organizers of the Republican convention have said they plan to issue credentials to 10 to 20 bloggers.
Dan B. Wood of the Christian Science Monitor on At the DNC, it’s a blog-eat-blog world:
Al Gore is kissing Tipper Gore on the podium (again). The sea of stovepipe- and Wisconsin-cheese-hatted conventioneers erupts into pandemonium (again).
As they do, a nondescript clique of 20- and 30-somethings (male and female) crouch expressionless over glowing computer screens, ensconced in the rafter shadows of FleetCenter’s cheap seats, well above the sound, spotlights, and fury. Some sip lattes. Others chew gum.
Blog like the wind (and remember those of us who almost made it)…