Bloggers take on the FEC!

Matt Stoller, Duncan Black, and 'Kos put together a memo to the FEC re: the current proposal to regulate blogging. Their comments, eloquently compiled into a memo, can be found here. There's an interesting argument to be made here rooted in free market capitalism. Carol Darr at IPDI often talks about how the Internet has "lowered the barriers to entry" in politics, giving every citizen with a free minute the chance to be heard through his or her blog. Readers can choose which bloggers they read, and the successful ones should be allowed to prosper and expand. Here's the salient bit:

We recognize that the FEC might feel some skittishness about allowing bloggers to be paid while simultaneously being treated as "media." This fear may stem from an assumption that bloggers are more likely to be swayed by money and become a de facto controlled entity. We do not believe this to be the case, primarily because of every blogger's need to maintain credibility given the diversity of competing options available of the blogosphere. In short, the free market of ideas works here: With zero cost of entry for participants (Blogger.com, the most popular blog service, is free) and zero cost for readers, citizens have unlimited options in terms of who to read and who to trust. Moreover, without the ability to receive paid advertising for our advocacy from those entities most desiring to reach our readers, we would no longer be able to sustain ourselves as independent voices and practice the kind of around-the-clock journalism that the Internet enables.