Self-Appointed Bloggers
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James Joyner | Thursday, November 1, 2007 |
Writing about Amy Schatz’ front page piece in today’s WSJ about Blue Hampshire subtitled, “Self-Appointed Bloggers Get Candidate Face Time;On the Bus With Edwards,” Tech President’s Josh Levy wonders, “why did Schatz’s editors call them ‘Self-appointed bloggers’? Do they need to be anointed by the Ministry of Blogging and Politics before writing a post?”
While I agree that the phrasing is awkward — most bloggers are, after all “self-appointed,” — it’s quite possible that it was used to distinguish them from official campaign bloggers hired by the candidates or their PR firms. That’s a rather important distinction these days. Of course, it could just be the standard mainstream media annoyance that bloggers can compete for an audience without jumping through the proper hoops.
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 with his wife and infant daughter.
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Given that few jurnalist are recruited at the point of a gun, couldn't you describe all journalists as self appointed. Sure they had to be hired, but the put themselves forward for the job, thus appointing themselves. Similarly, I suspect that every blogger who got an interview is "hired" by several thousand readers per day.
Isn't the WSJ a self-appointed newspaper?
I couldn't decide if it was a dig at their competitors or just extra wordage to bulk up the apparent content.
God knows, the only thing worse is the horde of self-appointed commenters.
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