Bloggers Working for Politicians
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James Joyner | Monday, December 4, 2006 |
National Journal’s Danny Glover has an interesting op-ed in yesterday’s NYT about the recent trend of bloggers going to work for politicians and campaigns as advisers and/or bloggers. While there has been a but of sturm and drang over it in the blogosphere, I personally have no objection to the practice so long as there is full disclosure. Indeed, I’d consider doing it myself for the right candidate.
What’s distressing to me, however, is how little these guys are being paid. Of the thirteen folks listed, only Jerome Armstrong is making an excellent living at it. Patrick Hynes and Tim Tagaris (of whom, frankly, I’d never heard) are bringing in a decent sum for part-time work. The rest are essentially volunteers.
UPDATE: Jon Henke, one of the campaign bloggers profiled, writing independently of the above (he wrote it yesterday, after all), is “uncomfortable” with having his salary disclosed and says “the numbers have been cited without any context. I don’t want to discuss it publicly, but I do feel an urge to disabuse people of any misapprehensions, high or low.”
Glover writes that the NYT butchered the piece in editing, giving the wrong impression on his views on the disclosure issue. He also has a roundup of blogger reactions to his column in that post and a follow-up.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.
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