A little thanks goes a long way
Emi links to an article asking why Congress doesn't blog, and I at first was going to respond with some comments basically agreeing with the they-have-no-peers-to-mimic argument the author makes. I mean, she's got some good points, that blogs would take valuable time from lawmakers' staffs, that most constituents would bother to read them anyway, et cetera. Yet again, most lawmakers are behind the curve, which is right where we'd expect them to be. No big news there.
But then Norton gets to her final point, that there are ways for lawmakers to connect with the blogosphere besides actually maintaining a blog. Norton mentions a few politicians who have posted messages of thanks to blogs who've supported their causes and such, and it hit me: Lawmakers need to be doing this. Fine, don't maintain your own blog, be baffled by the technology, worry about your message coming across wrong, but at the very least if you know there's a group of highly involved, engaged and active people out there, why the hell aren't you taking two seconds out of your day to tell a staff member to thank them? Would it really be that hard to add a once-a-week post on Kos or something from a senator just thanking the people for caring?
But then Norton gets to her final point, that there are ways for lawmakers to connect with the blogosphere besides actually maintaining a blog. Norton mentions a few politicians who have posted messages of thanks to blogs who've supported their causes and such, and it hit me: Lawmakers need to be doing this. Fine, don't maintain your own blog, be baffled by the technology, worry about your message coming across wrong, but at the very least if you know there's a group of highly involved, engaged and active people out there, why the hell aren't you taking two seconds out of your day to tell a staff member to thank them? Would it really be that hard to add a once-a-week post on Kos or something from a senator just thanking the people for caring?
4 Comments:
Are there FEC questions here? Could a “thanks” be interpreted as collusion? Would this threaten the independence of the blog?
I don’t know the answers.
I think it is better for a candidate to write once in a while on their own blog then to write on many public discussion blogs. If an elected official just writes thank you for caring then they are interupting the debate without giving any substantial arguement. I would rather see them write about specific issue on their own blogs once a week then on dailykos.
I thought Tuesday's class and the response from the guest lecturers was interesting...Republican blogs prefer to control the messaging thus they either don't blog or don't allow comments. Totally different approach to communcation than the blog was invented for.
Sarah Pearl said...
I think it is better for a candidate to write once in a while on their own blog then to write on many public discussion blogs. If an elected official just writes thank you for caring then they are interupting the debate without giving any substantial arguement. I would rather see them write about specific issue on their own blogs once a week then on dailykos.
wouldn't that just be a newsletter then?
Post a Comment
<< Home