Although “blogging” has been overtaken by Facebook and other social media, there is still a place for political discourse among (mostly) like-minded folks. Especially in an era in which the mass media, and “news” operations have shit the bed and divested themselves of the responsibility of being fact-finding and truthful. Simply put, we still need warm campfires to gather around. A place where false objectivity does not give all claims equal standing. We need to know that we are not alone and that we are not being gaslighted. So political blogs still have a place. So if I was giving advice to someone just starting one in some place like Arizona, say, I’d say this:
1) You need to put up a lot of content – 3 or 4 posts per day. So a lot of it is going to be picking up national stories, and that is okay. But always be searching for the local angle. Just a headline or short intro indicating how a national story relates to local issues can be useful.
2) Link to a lot of local news and opinion and give a lot of credit to people who deserve it. At its best, a blog is a hub in a network. In the early days of DL there was a flourishing blog scene in DE and that was fun to be a part of. It has changed a lot, and frankly, I’ve changed a lot. I got lazy and now I just get to two or three places to make sure I’m keeping up on what certain people are thinking about.
3) If you get some good commenters invite them on. Liberalgeek, Donviti, Pandora, Cassandra, DelawareDem, Nemski, ….etc.. the growth, durability, and let’s face it, quality of this blog grew once I was able to trick some other people into pitching in. In business, there is a tipping point of about 30 people when a startup gets out of the woods in terms of having some staying power. For blogs, I’d say that tipping point number is 3 to 4 contributors.
4) As a writer, develop a unique and memorable “voice.” Do this by immersing yourself in the lively writing of someone you like and just copy it the style for a while. Over time your own voice will grow out of that, but in the meantime, you will not be boring people to death with your monotonous prose. In blogging, as in life, there is no sin greater than boring people to death with monotonous prose.
5) Tolerate trolls, but not long. If I was starting now I’d cut off trolls a lot sooner than I did. When you know someone is just trying to push buttons and get a rise out of you, it is fine to block them without remorse or contemplation. Some trolls will try to skate the edge of the envelope and contribute thoughtful counterarguments once and a while, but they are mostly too dumb and lazy for that.
6) Enjoy your slow, incremental progress. It will take a while but you’ll see your hits going up and while most of those hits will be lurkers who will never comment, you can rest assured that among those lurkers are the assistants to decision makers, and decision makers. If radio is broadcasting, political blogging is narrowcasting. People like Bethany Hall-Long want to pretend that they don’t read this, but I guarantee they do. (Hi Bethany, Congrats on your win.)
7) Have fun. Don’t take yourself too seriously.