The Million Dollar Bloggy?
I'd like to follow-up on the question I asked Professor Darr yesterday in class. My point in asking "What's the worst I could do with a $2M blog?" wasn't to be facetious... it's that a blog, as we understand it, ceases to function in the same way once it has been co-opted by a million dollar investment. I'm willing to bet that the minute a corporation seriously invests in a blog to exploit the media exemption, the following things will happen:
- Some enterprising bloggers will tell everyone that said blog has sold out to corporate money
- The blog will become so media-heavy and feature-rich that it will cease to be perceived as a "blog" and will instead be perceived as a mainstream site
- The blog will lose credibility as a blog
The effectiveness of a blog, as an outside perspective untainted by political hackery, really is dependent on the extent to which it is perceived as anti-establishment. I consider myself representative of the mass of political blog readers... and I don't read ABC's "The Note" because I don't like that it's affiliated with the mainstream media. I don't read Keith Olbermann's blog, nor do I read the DNC/RNC blogs. The appeal for me, as it is for many others, is the individuality of the blogs. If the blogs I read started having corporate investors, I would stop reading them in a heartbeat.
5 Comments:
You really hit the nail on the head here. The bottom line is that you can't buy credibility. Big money donors just aren't going to be able to corrupt the entire system through blogs alone. There may be problems like the South Dakota bloggers that were on Thune's payroll, but there will always be dirty tricks, media exemption for bloggers or not.
The worst exploitation of the media loophole I could forsee would be companies creating incredibly awesome videos and distributing them over the net. While something of a concern, is that really a bigger problem than having an entire cable network acting as an adjunct of the Republican party?
Well said, Mike! As if the media exemption isn't already massively exploited [see Outfoxed for proof].
Yes, I agree that the media exemption is already exploited (and I'm dying to see Outfoxed!)
Darr definitely made me understand her point a little better last night. But even she freely admits that her argument is one that aims to avoid a slippery slope: If you give it to the blogs (which, she says, cannot be relied upon for self-regulation like the mainstream media can), then you're widening the loophole...you know, the one that's already too big.
I think we all know that these laws and regulations weren't made for these times. But before the FEC starts shutting down the big blogs because they need to incorporate, shouldn't they re-evaluate whether these laws would actually have the intended consequences?
I tend to agree with all three of you. Let's give the blogs the benefit of the doubt and perhaps require disclosure from any incorporated blog as to who its investers are.
The underlying rationale that has supported the limitations on money in politics is directly tied to corruption (or the appearance of corruption).
I fail to see how allowing bloggers to fall under the media exemption would open the door to corruption, even if exploitation along the lines of Darr's argument occurs. Without the corruption rationale, money-based restrictions on the ability of bloggers or independent organizations to get their message out is a violation of the First Amendment.
The credibility of these messages should be rightly challenged (as you argue), but their legality should not.
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