Blogger Summit Session Notes
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Contents |
Notes from Baratunde - Jack & Jill Politics
Notes from Baratunde - Jack & Jill Politics
Kenneth Quinnell's Notes
- Working With Campaigns
- Media with Cliff Schecter
- Iraq
- Holding the Media Accountable
- Bridging the Blogosphere Divides
- Blogging As A Business
- Building Coalitions and Moving an Agenda
- Building a State/Issue Blog
FOIA/State Open Records Requests
AP 3/15/08 story on state government sunshine laws
When submitting a FOIA/State open records requests, be both specific about the content you want to request and broad when determining what form the data can take, e.g., correspondence, schedules, emails, memos, department productivity reports, cables, and so on, instead of just simply "records."
Know your state laws and refer to the revised code/statute in your letter.
Make a FOIA/state open records request when you've exhausted other options, such as informal requests, whistleblower sources, publicly available records, etc., rather than going directly to a formal filing because it can often put off the government staff or agency and make them uncooperative.
Instead of going on a fishing expedition, request a snapshot of the information that you want (restricted to a short time frame, type of record, etc.) to confirm/deny your suspicions.
Solicit the assistance of journalism and good government groups to help with crafting your request and working around unhelpful staff or an initial denial. Society of Professional Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editor, Common Cause, ACLU and others are good sources of information on Sunshine Laws.
Bob's Blogger Summit Notes
Successful ideas to build blog traffic:
- Weekly news roundup distributed by email, include lots of names of reporters etc.
- Monthly newsletter can also be useful.
- Tag stories, "Campaign 08" so they are picked up by search engines, Technorati, Google.
- Use Feedburner or Feedblitz automated pulls to generate email summaries/headline feeds.
- Follow people around in costumes (see picture of the RI "lame duck")
- Sandwich boards.
- Op-Ed piece
- Mention names of journalists and politicians in your pieces.
- Sign up for a Google Alert about your blog
- BlogTalkRadio for radio shows.
- BlogAds Survey Tool is useful.
- Form a PAC to raise money for state house races.
- Paypal subscription: use Soapblox feature to manually allow subscribers to see or not see content/ads
- Incorporate Digg and Reddit links
- Drupal is an alternative to SoapBlox
- Google Forms can be used to build opt-in email lists.
- Google Calendar is better than the SoapBlox Calendar.
- Google custom search is better than the SoapBlox search and can be integrated into SoapBlox.
- Sources of advertisements and other revenue opportunities:
[ ] Burst
[ ] DoubleClick
[ ] FireDogLake ad syndicator
[ ] Affiliate marketing: Amazon Associate Program "I Recommend" widget.
[ ] eBay Affiliate program
[ ] Feedburner: ads in your feed
[ ] Blogburst
Resources for research
- White House archive of Bush's speeches.
- Statistical information via White House site.
- Department of labor statistics: Wage and price information.
- Sunlight Foundation.
How to look good on TV
- Put your hands on the table.
- Sit on your jacket if you are wearing one.
- Talk only to the camera.
- Your heart should be aligned with your to head: your whole body must be aligned.
- Look authentic: that's the key.
- Lean forward with your whole body to make a point. Do not lead with your head. When your whole body leans forward your head will get bigger by about 5% and the camera person will not adjust the shot.
- You must feel the "passion of your loins:" don't talk only with the head.
- Record yourself and then listen to yourself: do you talk too fast? do you say "um" or "like?" Replace that with silence.
- Waiting, silence, can be useful.
Health Care
Resources recommended by Ezra Klein about health care:
- "One Nation Uninsured"
- "Sick" by John Cohn
- The Health Care Blog by Matthew Holt
- Ezra Klein's blog
- Money Driven Medicine
Notes from Ezra Klein's talk:
- John McCain couldn't get health care under his own plan.
- Whyden plan is best plan currently in Congress.
- Single payer? There is NO CHANCE for single payer healthcare at the moment. People who argue for it are engaging in wishful thinking. It is more more likely that we will invade France and take their health care system than enact single payer. The idea was annihilated in OR and WA when placed on the ballot there. In general, no one will "jump" (take a leap of faith) on the subject of health care: the population on this issue is very risk averse.
Environment
Suggested talking points for discussions about green initiatives:
- Will save money.
- Will create jobs.
- Contrast "efficiency" (good) from "conservation" (annoying).
- Fight nukes on opportunity cost and waste disposal issues.
Recommended resources:
- Union of Concerned Scientists Report about economic benefits of renewables.
- NRDC report on economic costs of inaction
- Stern report in UK on economic costs of inaction worldwide.
Interacting with Capitol Hill staff
- Use the telephone. Journalists use the telephone. Email is too traceable: oral communications is better for many issues i.e. the staff will be more forthcoming.
- Thomas legislative computer system has introduced a fixed URL for a bill.
- Check out Pelosi's blog The Gavel: speaker.gov/blog.
