On Wednesday the Daily Cal ran a piece about Berkeley Blogging. I have a few comments to make, considering I have been doing just that for a year.

First I should mention I feel left out. The Daily Cal did not mention us at California Patriot. Even though last year we got an honorable mention in their Best of Berkeley (the best was the live journal community, but I don’t think they are a blog), we are not news enough. I would think a student run conservative blog that discussed Berkeley would be worth a note but I apparently. I would be curious to know how many links the Daily Cal gets to their site from here compared to the other mentioned blogs.

My ideas of blogging are similar to Beetle’s. What makes a blog unique is the coverage of things or informed analysis that you can’t find elsewhere. Anyone in the country can write about national politics and events, but a person who knows and talks to the movers and shakers in a field or carefully follows an obscure topic has something beyond the normal fare. Beetle has the best coverage of the ASUC in the world because he talks to some of the important people and has followed everything the ASUC has done for the past several years.

A Case Study: ASUC Mess Over the Summer

One interesting example of blogs’ usefulness was seen in the ASUC elections mess last summer. The only print paper that covered it regularly was the Daily Cal, and they only published twice a week, and even then some bad reporting or a desire to not assign blame obscured what was happening. The blogs filled this vacuum. Calstuff, Beetle Beat, JKoo, a few others, and me provided information as it happened and filled in the gaps. There were also people who were directly involved in the happenings writing online, like Ben Narodick and Andy Ratto along with experts in everything ASUC, like Beetle.

One of the other advantages of having these online updates and commentaries is dialogue. Any incorrect information or bias could immediately be challenged. A lot of the stuff online placed the Student Action party and some of its members in a negative light (I was one of them and still stand behind my conclusions). People engaged in discussion about this assignment of blame presenting arguments and countering them. There were so many anonymous supporters of Student Action they got the term SA-anon bots. There were cries of bias against SA, but at any time a Student Action supporters could have started a blog to counter what was said, (I even offered to publicize such a blog but was not indulged by anyone).

In short, the blogs and their interactive format were the best and most timely source of information. In this way and for these reasons among others, print newspapers are being overshadowed.

Another advantage of the online medium is the possibilities for links. So far in this post I have linked directly to half a dozen different articles or websites I have mentioned. You an instantly look at the sources I mention and not simply take my word on what they say.

There is also decal in progress this semester about blogging. If you get a chance check them out. The Catalytic Triad has even posed a few thoughts on blogging.