News-Record.com

In view of my new gig and the fact that some of its governing coverage principles may be in flux, it's hard to know exactly what focus my blog should take. City Editor Teresa Prout, my new supervisor, and I have to talk about that, and we've got other stuff to do first as I make this transition. Accordingly, The Lex Files is going largely dark, if not completely dark, until we figure out what role, if any, my blogging in general and this blog in particular will play in the new assignment.

We might set up separate blogs for Rockingham County and the city of High Point, we might set up a regional blog, or we might do something entirely different. A number of internal dominoes must fall before we can see our way clear to defining that role, and until that happens I've got more urgent things to deal with as I make the transition. Meanwhile, thanks for reading and commenting.

... my friend David Allen has a wonderful (if, by "wonderful," you mean "emotionally raw") post up at his blog, Thoughtcrimes.org, a reflection on pain and loss. The occasion is 9/11, but that's not really what the post is about. And David's anti-GOP proclivities are obvious on his blog, but that's not what the post is about, either. Go check it out.

Guess who's blogging now?

Mahmood Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran. (Click on the hybrid U.S/British flag icon in the upper right corner for the English version.) And he's got an RSS feed and everything.

Now it's not like many other Iranians can blog, but this is pretty interesting.

Except he goes into all this whiny detail about his boyhood. Not so interesting.

(There's also a president's blog at www.president.ir [or, in English, www.president.ir/eng], but it reads as if written by an aide or press ecretary and describes the president's actions in the third person.)

I guess we'll see where this goes.

Or, while we're waiting, should we have a contest to see who can submit the best fake blog post for the Ahmadinejad blog?

Why, yes, I think we should ....

Liberal blogger Chris Bowers at MyDD speculates on how and why the MSM cover liberal political blogs and suggests that liberals are better at using blogs to advance their political agenda than conservatives. Oddly enough, another liberal, Steve at No More Mr. Nice Blog, thinks Chris has it exactly backwards, that conservatives have figured out that blogs aren't useful for what Chris thinks and have chosen to use their blogs in other ways.

I'm slightly more inclined toward Steve's take than Chris's, but that's just my impression, not any kind of empirical observation. At any rate, they both raise some good questions about the uses and effectiveness of political blogs.

*Hat tip to the late, great Replacements

Does the Air Force really think terrorists blog?

What's this really about?

UPDATE: Social-networking expert Valdis Krebs thinks he has the answer.

Several students attending this year's Eastern Music Festival here in Greensboro have a blog. Go check 'em out.

Ladies and gentlebloggers of Blogsboro ...

You've sparred with him in our Letters to the Editor.

You've grappled with him at Ed Cone's place.

He's one of those commenters who takes such delight in commenting that people frequently invite him to start his own blog ... and now he has done it.

Please welcome ... Bubba's Noteworthy! Go show him some love.

I've been blogging openly, under my real name, for so long -- coming up on two years here; continually for more than four years and off and on since 1997 in my nonwork life -- that I sometimes slip a little into the delusion that what I do is both normal and safe.

It isn't.

In fact, blogging as a defined part of one's job isn't even "normal" in this newsroom, let alone in the U.S. white-collar work force at large. For most people, it also isn't safe. And every once in a while, we get an ugly reminder of that fact.

Blogging, done right, can enhance a lot of businesses. But if you're blogging from work and it's not part of your job, please think twice about that. If you blog anonymously or pseudonymously and having your real name connected with your blogging might create professional or personal problems for you, please reconsider. Is your blogging worth getting fired over, to you?

In a perfect world, our personal opinions wouldn't create any negative consequences for us. In the world we live in, however, they can and do, all the time, and with very limited exceptions you'll have no recourse when it happens. If your employer gets angry over your blogging, you might or might not have the opportunity to quit blogging before you get fired. That's bad enough if you're single and supporting no one but yourself. If you're supporting others, it's infinitely worse.

Even if the worst consequence you might suffer is the hurt feelings of someone you care for, ask yourself whether the pleasure of blogging is worth inflicting that hurt.

Blogging is intoxicating. I know that better than most because I have been more intoxicated than most. But as with any intoxicant, too much, or even a little at the wrong place and time, can result in disaster, and neither the online world nor the real one is particularly forgiving.

So be careful out there.

The world's funniest blog not written by Mr. Sun! is back:

Fafblog!

I did interview him yesterday for a story I'm doing on blogging and building community. I'm focusing on one particular local case in which Billy the Blogging Poet played a key role. I don't know yet exactly when it will run, but I need to finish it today because tomorrow the GTRC report comes out and/or a comet hits Earth, throwing vast amounts of debris into the atmosphere thereby reducing ambient sunlight by more than 90% and destroying life as we know it. Either way, I'll be swamped.

(NASA says the comet will miss us, but they're such cockeyed optimists it's hard to take them seriously.)

Local blogger and filmmaker Chris Knight has done a 2-minute short that's a parody of the opening sequence of HBO's Mafia drama "The Sopranos" ... filmed entirely in Rockingham County. I'm no film critic, but I thought it very nicely done. See what you think. (And if you've never seen the opening sequence of "The Sopranos," he has a link to that as well, purely for the purposes of disinterested scientific inquiry.)

Sue has few details, but it's definitely on.

I've turned off comment moderation for now ... let's see if the spam floods return. Hope not.

Jason Calcanis, founder of Weblogs Inc. (acquired last year by AOL) says yes. Alan Meckler, CEO of Jupitermedia, says no. I have no idea who's right, and of course I just grossly oversimplified both men's positions, but you can read what they had to say at The Wall Street Journal's Web site.

Grrr. My apologies, but I only today learned that an incorrect setting on this blog has rendered comments all but inoperable. I'm not sure how long this problem has existed. But the last comment was logged on March 21, and even given that I was out of town for almost a week between then and now, the commenting dry spell should have tipped me off before now.

Again, I apologize, and for anyone who has been trying to comment, you are now free to do so. I think. (If you run into problems, please e-mail me and let me know. Thanks!)

I'll be at the Piedmont Triad Bloggers' March Meetup at 7 p.m. tonight at the Panera Bread, 2645 Lawndale Drive in Greensboro. Come out and say hi. We can talk about partnerships between N&R staff and people like you in reporting and writing stories. Or we can just talk basketball. Whichever.

Someone named Amy Alexander, to whom I dearly hope I'm not related, went on NPR recently and said some uncomplimentary things about blogging, some of which were constitutionally protected opinion I happen to disagree with, some of which were just flat wrong and some of which were missing some significant context.

Fortunately, Steve Gilliard and the people who live in his comments box (I stopped by) are there to put the smackdown on her. Some of the language is a tad rough, but it's a good read.

I don't need this at the moment, but you might.

Try to tell that to David Wharton.

How did Greensboro become Bloggsboro, the home of ConvergeSouth? A lot of people asked me that yesterday at We Media 2005 in New York, and I didn't really have a good answer. But Tom Lassiter, who walked out of the N&R 18 years ago about 30 seconds before I walked in, does, in a 6-minute QuickTime video.

Via my colleague Eric Townsend comes news of a court ruling that should gladden the hearts of those who choose to, or feel they must, blog anonymously:

... the Delaware Supreme Court sided with free-speech advocates Wednesday and rejected a Smyrna Town councilman's quest to unmask an anonymous Internet critic.

The state's high court reversed a Superior Court order requiring Internet service provider Comcast Cable Communications to release the identity of "John Doe No. 1" to Councilman Patrick Cahill so Cahill could pursue a libel suit for allegedly defamatory comments Doe posted on a weblog, or "blog."

And the justices set a high standard for future cases, making it difficult for people like Cahill to force disclosure of an anonymous poster's identity simply by filing lawsuits that have little chance of success.

"We are concerned that setting the standard too low will chill potential posters from exercising their First Amendment right to speak anonymously," Chief Justice Myron T. Steele wrote in a 33-page opinion.

"The possibility of losing anonymity in a future lawsuit could intimidate anonymous posters into self-censoring their comments or simply not commenting at all," the opinion states. ...

The high court's ruling was hailed by free-speech advocates who, like the Supreme Court, likened anonymous political speech on the Internet to the anonymous political pamphlets handed out during the Revolutionary War era. ...

"This is an important decision by an important Supreme Court," [attorney Paul Alan] Levy said, noting that this is the first such case addressed by a state's highest court. [Levy filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Doe No. 1.] That makes courts in other states likely to look to this decision for guidance.

"The court's determination to require sufficient evidence before a critic is outed will go a long way toward reassuring citizens that they remain free to anonymously criticize public officials," he said.

David L. Finger, who represented Doe No. 1, said he was "pleased that the court agreed that the statements that John Doe No. 1 made, in the context of this blog, could not reasonably be interpreted as statements of fact. They were basically his opinion."

I'm not a big fan of anonymous/pseudonymous blogging, just as I am not a big fan of anonymous sources in journalism. But, also as with anonymous sources, I realize that some people -- because of fears of losing their job, or alienating loved ones, or some other legitimate concern -- have to blog anonymously or can't blog at all. Calling someone names anonymously, or opining anonymously that someone is a jerk, is pretty cheesy behavior, but allowing it is the price we pay for freedom of expression -- if you don't believe me, look at the comments to some of my previous posts :-)

I'm not a lawyer, but I think the court did a good job of balancing some important competing interests. It protected anonymous/pseudonymous expression of opinion while leaving the door open to libel suits against the purveyors of anonymous/pseudonymous, but false and damaging, factual assertions. You can't just use any old lawsuit to destroy anonymity, it said, but if you have a legitimate legal gripe, the courts will help you draw aside that veil. That's a perfectly reasonable standard, and when, not if, this case or one like it makes it to the U.S. Supreme Court, I hope and trust that the justices will rely heavily on this ruling in crafting their own.

I should know this, but I don't and right this second I don't have time to find out on my own: Does anyone know of any free WiFi available on/around Tate Street and/or Spring Garden Street in the vicinity of UNCG? E-mail me or answer in the comments. Thanks!

Bob Cauthen, in his first post at Corante.com, has some things to say to the Big Mainstream Media of which he once, via the San Francisco Chronicle, was a part:

Memo to mainstream media: You don't get to blog.

You have a publishing apparatus. So you don't get to blog. You have a broadcasting apparatus. So you don't get to blog.

In case you missed this the point while you were reading up on youth slang, I'll repeat it for emphasis. You. Do. Not. Get. To. Blog.

Not that you won't try. Currently, there's a rush among traditional media outlets to get into that wicked bitchin', snaps inducing "blogging thing." Almost all of these efforts are agonizingly misguided.

Buzzword compliance is a big deal in traditional media. Unfortunately, in America, media leadership is marbled with mediocre minds. And, like loneliness, mediocrity craves company.

Publishers, editors and broadcasters feel precisely naked if they are not participating in the trend of the moment. They yap about innovation and then simply shamble along, following the lead of others. That's why editors love editorial fads. If one person makes a mistake he or she gets blamed for it. If everyone makes the same mistake, it's an industrywide experiment. No blame. Safety in the mind-numbed crowd...

My first thought on reading this was, "'precisely naked'? As opposed to what, 'approximately naked'? Speaking of 'mediocre minds' ... "

My second thought was, "And just who died and left you King of All Blogging, [expletive]??"

We're not doing what we're doing to be trendy. We're doing it whether anyone else does it or not. In fact, we don't care whether anyone else does it or not. We're doing what we're doing because we think it might be the only way for us to stay in business long-term as an independent journalism operation. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

Moreover, although our blogging is what got us a lot of the initial focus, blogging has never been an end in itself for us. It's a tool, a means to an end. We'll use it as long as it works, "works" being defined as "helps us toward the above-stated goal." And because Bob Cauthen has no earthly idea what might or might not help us toward our particular goal in our particular market, and because this is still a semi-free country, he doesn't get to say who blogs and who doesn't.

Indeed, if blogging has any rules, the first rule is that you don't make rules for blogging.

Jeff Jarvis at Buzzmachine.com adds:

You are trying to import the worst traits of old, big media -- exclusion, snobbishness, the closed club -- to citizens' media. And it is most unbecoming, especially since you served in both worlds. ...

... to say that someone should not blog? That is importing the very worst of old media into new, creating a closed society. ...

How much better it would be if you took your experience working for (cough) big media and (ahem) blogs and suggested how your former colleagues should approach this new and wonderful world. Instead, you slam the door in their face and then stick your tongue out at them from the other side.

This is how bloggers get a bad reputation. This is how journalism got a bad reputation. We should know better.

Because of both the nature and the timing of the London bombings yesterday, Tim Porter writes, daily newspapers were pretty much useless:

Stories, photos, audio and video reporting on the horrific bombings in London fill the airwaves, top the web sites of news organizations and occupy the attention of the blogosphere. The front page of the Times is dominated by a photo showing a throng of Londoners cheering for the city's successful Olympic bid. How sadly outdated it is today. ...

The first-day story no longer belongs to newspapers - and hasn't for a long time. It isn't even the property of professional journalists any longer.

Porter's post is accompanied by a photo, taken by a London Underground passenger with a cell phone, of another rider with a cloth over his face. He continues:

It was taken by Adam Stacey, a passenger on the "Northern line, just past Kings Cross" some time after the bombing on that train and uploaded to a moblog (then picked up by the BBC.) Terrorism made Stacey a victim; technology made him a reporter. ...

The participatory nature of the news coverage of the London bombings - from photos on the BBC to Flickr, from blogger Norm Geras and to David Carr in London (posting in Samizdata) - erases the line between those affected by the news and those who cover the news.

In a world of digital empowerment and reflexive communication, we are all reporters.

But is there still a role for newspapers to play? Emphatically, Porter says, but they should be providing "everything but the news":

I want the type of reporting that professionals can still do better than citizens, but also pointers to the best of the citizen work:

Context: The history of terrorism in London and on the European continent.

Update: What happened to the Madrid subway bombing suspects?

Local: What are the safety measures on the New York subway system? On BART in the Bay Area? How have they changed since the Madrid bombing? What money is involved? (This is local relative to the daily papers Porter reads; he lists them elsewhere in the post -- Lex)

Geography: A large, data-rich info-graphic of what happened (which is so hard to read online).

People like me: London is filled with American tourists. Tell me their stories.

Debate: An op-ed page devoted to liberty vs. security. (I think that's a false dichotomy, a trip-and-fall into the common journalistic trap of presuming two, and only two, distinct "sides" to a story. But, yes, some sort of enlightened opinion writing from a variety of viewpoints -- Lex)

Voices: The words and images of those who were there.

So: How'd we do?

I received an invitation this week from Anonymoses to join Carolina Blog Consultants. Some well-known local bloggers already have signed on. I'm flattered to be asked and certainly could use more money, but (and I tried to e-mail 'Moses this privately but couldn't find an address for him) I have to decline: It would be hard to create a more direct conflict of interest with my full-time gig.

That said, whatever helpful tips I come across on blogging and related subjects, I pass on here for free. So at least some good comes out of this.

A memorable quote, pulled from an otherwise unmemorable thumbsucker post by Lance Mannion about men bloggers v. women bloggers, wonks v. writers and oh who cares ...

[Blogger] Atrios is never one to write the op-ed writer's version of "If I may be so bold as to interrupt for a moment" when "[Expletive] that [expletive]!" will do the trick. But [bloggers] [Matthew] Yglesias, [Kevin] Drum and Josh Marshall write as if the writer they most admire is [LA Times editorial-page editor] Michael Kinsley, who is, whatever you think of his style, and I think it's a little on the precious side, no Mark Twain.

Twain wrote with a pen warmed up in Hell. Kinsley writes as if with a keyboard that's been kept in a temperature-controlled room in a cloister, dusted off daily by nuns, and then handed to him when he calls for it, in a polite whisper of course, by the youngest and most innocent novice wearing white gloves. ...

A front line of bloggers all writing like Michael Kinsley is not going to set the world on fire.

"Dusted off daily by nuns." Hee.

But really. I write with a stultifying editorial voice here because I have to. (Well, posts about running with scissors aside.) But that doesn't mean YOU have to. Light it up. Sure, use facts and logic and all, but for cryin' out loud, don't write like us -- we're hemorrhaging readers, remember? Besides, if blogging ain't fun, then what's the point?

(And can you freakin' imagine Mark Twain as a blogger?)

UPDATE: Missing link restored, thanks to Anna in comments below.

FURTHER UPDATE: Lance responds to point out, correctly, that I forgot to warn you about the nudity on his site. If you lost your job because you stumbled onto his NSFW photo of the Australian women's soccer team just as the boss was peering over your shoulder, I apologize.

Well, OK, some of these have been around for a while, but we've now put up a one-stop link to blogs written by local politicians. The link also appears on our home page, in the left navigation bar, under "News."

We're still discussing what kind of blog aggregation to have on the redesigned site, but this is a step that we could take before that question gets settled.

For now, if you're a local politician who blogs and you want your blog added to the list, contact Mike Fuchs and he can take care of it.

Michael Verdi posts step-by-step instructions here. And it's free, assuming you have some kind of device for recording video in the first place.

And remember that if you're submitting a story for publication on our Web site, you can attach may also be able to submit any accompanying *.jpg photos you have, too. E-mail me for more information.

OK, folks, you're not holding up your end of the bargain. Remember "news as conversation"? I look back over my most recent posts, and the eight or so there have garnered, among them, a grand total of two comments.

I'm puzzled. I've given you a wide variety of topics to munch on. (No variety gets much wider than the range that includes "destroying the Earth".) Is this thing on?

So c'mon, let's give it another try. I'll even offer up a Topic of Substance for today's discussion: torture and human rights. I believe I have the right to torture any human I want.

Discuss, please.

Two bloggers, that is.

The Committee to Protect Bloggers, a fledgling nonprofit modeled after the Committee to Protect Journalists but focusing specifically on bloggers, has designated tomorrow, Feb. 22, as Free Mojtaba and Arash Day to focus attention on two Iranian bloggers, one of whom is in prison and the other of whom has been released but still faces charges. (Additional info on the two is available via links in this CPB post.)

The group is asking bloggers worldwide to post about these two tomorrow to focus attention on their plight. Follow the link if you're so inclined.

Have you ever dreamed of being a humor blogger? Have you ever aspired to match (or, perhaps in a different dimension, exceed) the glee quotient of such superstars as Mr. Sun? Well, good news, campers. B. at Pish Tosh has published instructions on bringing the funny in the blogosphere. I mean, yeah, sure, she dresses it up all academic-like by calling it "The Rhetoric of Blogging," perhaps a conscious evocation of Wayne Booth's litcrit classic, "The Rhetoric of Fiction," but make no mistake: This is nothing more complicated or less valuable than a simple list of steps you can take toward online humor. (You probably should know that B. considers sex and bad words funny, but there are many other things that are dreamt of in her philosophy, as well.)

So, since the world has never, to my knowledge, suffered an excess of humor, hie thee hence, start bringing the funny and start letting us know where it is once you've brought it. You have your orders! Dismissed!

Some newspapers get it. Some newspapers are trying to get it. And some newspapers are aching to be hit upside the head with a 10-foot clue stick.

UPDATE 2/17: Make it a 20-foot clue stick. With spikes.

Since I knew a month ago that I couldn't be there I kind of let this sneak up on me, but there's a blogger meetup in Greensboro tonight. If you blog, or if you want to, come for good company and a discussion of blogging, podcasting and other cool stuff. It starts at 7 p.m. at the Green Bean, 341 S. Elm in downtown Greesnboro; details here.

I finally got to a meetup of local bloggers -- the one held last night at the Green Bean in downtown Greensboro. It was low-key, productive and enjoyable, and it was good to see some old acquaintances and meet in person some of the people whom I've known and admired to this point only through their writing. Props to Roch, Chewie, Billy, Jim Capo, TheShu, David Hoggard, Jay Ovittore, Tara Sue, Sue, Herb and the other attendees I'm probably forgetting.

The regular meetup time is 7 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month, although I had to leave last night before things were over and so don't know yet where next month's meetup will be. (In a moment of parental rashness, I had promised my kids I'd be home to kiss them goodnight before they went to sleep.)

If you're local and you blog (or want to learn about blogging), c'mon out.

I'm going, and so's JR. Some interesting people will be there, too, so maybe you should go as well. Info here.

Wow. I am now a Major League Blogger, folks: I got my first press kit today addressed to "Mr. Lex Alexander, Blog Writer, News & Record Interactive." It's from the Famous Idaho Potatoes(tm) people and includes a color photo of Denise Austin, "America's leading fitness guru," who looks sort of like a slightly weathered Heather Locklear.

I'm not sure exactly what kind of cuisine-trend-generating power the Famous Idaho Potatoes(tm) people think I wield, but I guess this would be the wrong time to mention that I'm pondering one of those low-starch diets, huh?

In the wake of bloggers' attack on the credibility of documents used by CBS News in its reporting, one Robert Strong wishes to make a point.

"Do you mean the Robert Strong whom CBS quoted as saying the documents likely were authentic?" you ask. Why, no, I do not mean that Robert Strong, and herein lies our story:

... I am indeed a college professor. I am not, however, the Robert Strong who spoke to CBS. I never met [the purported author of the documents], I never lived in Texas, and I never served in that state's Air National Guard. But on the Internet none of this matters.

Ever since the 60 Minutes broadcast, I have been getting angry e-mails from Bush supporters who are sure that I am a key player in a vast left-wing conspiracy bent on diminishing the president's not extraordinary record of military service. ...

CBS says that its Bush-bashing documents have been authenticated by Strong; Google tells everyone on the Internet that I am Professor Strong. That's it. I am guilty as Googled.

It used to be that only leaders could be demagogues. They were the only ones with access to mass communication, which allowed them to manipulate popular prejudices in pursuit of power. Now fast computers and the World Wide Web have democratized demagogy. Today anyone can sit at his or her terminal, spew hatred, issue false accusations and become a virtual Sen. Joe McCarthy.

And although I've spent 20 years in the mainstream media, I've never been especially fond or respectful of my business's "gatekeeper" role. I got involved in the Internet mainly because I thought it could expand democracy at home and abroad by democratizing journalism. I started blogging for the same reason.

But Professor Strong's concerns about the dark potential of the Internet in general and blogging in particular are valid. I don't think even the most enthusiastic fan of blogging thinks the scenario he describes is a good thing.

I wish I could have attended the Piedmont Bloggers Conference on Saturday, but family matters called. I'm delighted to see (in my nowhere-near-comprehensive survey of participants' blogs) that a good time appears to have been had by all. I hope, and expect, that a lot of good things will come out of the event.

At least one good thing already has: my friend and colleague Mark Binker's reflections on the event. You need to read his whole post, which isn't all that long, but I was particularly struck by this passage:

... as people disengage from traditional media, it presents a two-side problem: one side for the [newspaper] industry and one side for the bloggers. (This is the point I was trying to stumble through right before I left.)

For traditional media reporters, we are losing feedback by some of our best and most critical readers. Simply put, if people stop calling you up to talk about the news and go somewhere else (their favorite blog) to rant, you are no longer able to service their wants and needs as effectively. We lose some of the natural network a reporter relies on to collect tips and advance the news.

I heard some folks say that newspaper reporters, especially at big papers, don’t pay attention to individuals. Then those folks aren't very good reporters/journalists/newspeople. A good newsman should always accept and appreciate feedback. Does this mean we can go on every adventure that a caller would like us to? No. But it does mean that we should and do listen to feedback and suggestions when they're offered.

For the folks who are disengaging from traditional media, they are silencing their own voices. They no longer are influencing reporters by their suggestions, no longer influencing editorial page readers with their letters, no longer influencing editors with their critiques of coverage. And as unhappy as they are now with traditional media, if they disengage altogether they simply let traditional media drift further away from meeting their needs.

Precisely. But why does this matter -- other than my obvious self-interest in ensuring that my employer stays in business?

For one thing, although a few bloggers do independent reporting for their blogs (one example being Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo), most rely on the mainstream media, defined here to include Fox News as well as the other cable news networks, for their raw material. That's not to devalue the contributions of bloggers who don't do independent reporting; many bloggers who don't report nonetheless help to advance the issue by raising questions the original reporters didn't.

Why do the mainstream media provide such a big proportion of the raw material? For two related reasons. No. 1: The mainstream media, despite loss of audience and market share in recent years, still have the resources bloggers lack. When a New York Times or a "60 Minutes" goes after a big story, it has the luxury of sparing no expense. And when it's not going after a big story, it can use the same resources to go after lots and lots of small and medium-sized stories. No blog in the world can apply that level of firepower to a big journalistic target, and no single-author blog can spread itself that widely.

Reason No. 2, which is intimately related to Reason No. 1, is that no blog reaches that many people -- at least, not yet -- and it's the size of the audience that determines the ad revenue that makes all those resources possible. All the cable networks' audiences combined still constitute a fraction of what even the least-watched news operation for one of the original Big 3 over-the-air networks can pull in.

Locally, the disparity becomes even more acute. When the News & Record puts a story on A1 above the fold, almost 100,000 people are going to buy that story on any weekday, and a couple of multiples of that number are at least going to glance at it, if not read it all the way to the end. If you want to get a story in front of a big segment of this community quickly and with authority, depth and context, you don't blog it and wait for Greensboro to beat a path to your door: you come to us. And for all the good that blogs do, it's far from clear at this point whether even a wide-ranging network of local blogs ever will be able to fulfill the same function as effectively.

I hope that the N&R will continue to exercise this responsibility for a long, long time. And I expect that it will ... as long as the paper continues to ensure that its stories matter to readers. But I also expect that we will rely increasingly on blogs to help us note stories bubbling up in neighborhoods, issues that might resonate citywide or even more broadly, and to provide feedback on our coverage of those issues so that our coverage remains fearless, independent, useful and relevant.

No new medium has ever wholly replaced another. What happens instead is that each medium adapts, to a greater or less degree, to the presence of the newcomer. Blogs being a kind of hybrid medium, their effects are a bit difficult to predict with confidence. Still, although I'm not an optimist by nature, there is something about blogging that makes me optimistic. You, too, I hope.

One thing I'm trying not to do on this blog is blog about blogging itself -- you can go a lot of other places for that. However, I would be remiss if I didn't let you know about the Piedmont Blog Conference, this Saturday in Greensboro, where at least part of the focus will be on political blogging. It's free; additional info is here. Local blogging impresario (and N&R Sunday columnist) Ed Cone has put it together, but it's looking like a large number of less-well-known local bloggers will be attending as well. (I had hoped to, but I have a family commitment that morning.) If you're new to blogging, or if you are familiar with it but want to learn more about political blogging, you ought to go. It promises to be lively and enlightening; I'm looking forward to reading some participants' blogs next week to see how it went.

UPDATE: This conference now has its own blog, which will be updated during the proceedings.