Thank you.
Yeah you! The one reading this. Thank you for reading Politics in the Zeros. I appreciate it.
I started PoliZeros in April as a homegrown weblog, then switched to Radio UserLand software a few months later. Currently, PoliZeros averages over 500 user sessions a day, with spikes up to 700. Plus, the internal Radio UserLand rankings consistently shows it in their daily top 100.
What fascinates me is 1) how fast news travels on weblogs, 2) how weblogs frequently lead the mass media in breaking stories.
One example: The recent exposure of Trent Lott’s past racist statements was done by weblogs, not the mass media. Major media picked up the story only several days after blogs had done the serious digging and research.
Another example: The attempted coup in Venezuela last spring. While the mass media was uniformly saying Chavez resigned voluntarily and had left the country, little NarcoNews got the real story out on their listserv, where it spread within hours through blogdom. A few days later the mass media retracted their stories printing, essentially, what NarcoNews had reported days earlier.
These are crazy times we are in. I suspect 2003 will be seriously nutty. A shaky economy. At least one war. A populace who, basically, is losing faith in their leaders. Ah well, danger and opportunity are sometimes the same thing.
I heard Ron Kovic speak recently. He said, we are living in historic times and what happens now will for better or worse be spoken of for decades to come. And no one I’ve mentioned his comment to has disagreed.
A few weeks back at a meeting, Arianna Huffington said, we can’t rely on our leaders, they are part of the problem. We have to do it ourselves.
Blogs, I think, are part of the solution. And thanks again for reading this one.