Responding to a silly criticism
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| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Mike Connery over at MyDD has a post with some illogical criticism of our blog here at Campus Progress. Wringing his hands over the disconnect between young progressives and most of the liberal blogosphere he writes:
Campus Progress and Young People For both operate their own internal blog communities, but the content on these blogs frequently runs days (sometimes weeks) behind the regular blogosphere chatter, and rarely responds to what the larger blogosphere is discussing or writes in any way that would indicate the users even read the major progressive blogs.
The second statement, that we don't write in any way that would indicate we even read the major progressive blogs is outright false and simply demonstrates Connery's ignorance. Our outgoing Associate Editor, Dana Goldstein, her incoming replacement, Kay Steiger and I are all regular contributors to TAPPED, the group blog of The American Prospect and winner of the Sidney Hillman award for best blog this year. TAPPED is unquestionably a major progressive blog. Since our posts are often cross-posted there our readers are by definition familiar with the content on major liberal blogs. Our other new editor, Jesse Singal, has blogged for The Washington Monthly (ever heard of Kevin Drum, Mr. Connery?) and we have been fortunate to feature the writing of major liberal bloggers both national (Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias) and local (Matt Singer of Left in the West.)
Despite our strong ties to the young policy and culture bloggers, Connery's first claim, that we aren't part of the electoral-driven discussion taking place on blogs like Kos is true. That is because our tax status as a non-partisan non-profit prohibits us from endorsing candidates and our mission is fundamentally issue-based rather than electoral. Furthermore, our website is not just a blog. Unlike MyDD we are an online magazine that runs reported, fact-checked articles by activists and journalists. The blog is an addendum to that and, while I admit could be strengthened, the ways in which I would like to see it improved are not (and by definition cannot) be what someone like Connery would suggest (e.g. a Kos junior where bloggers do things like urge their readers to raise money for Ned Lamont.)
What I'd like to see more on our site, both as articles and as blog posts, are reported dispatches from students on what is happening on their campus and young people on what is happening in their community. I freely, and proudly, admit this goal is journalistic rather than electoral. Contra Connery's claim, this does not mean I don't read and value what Kos, MyDD et al, do. But it is fundamentally different. Anyone who criticizes our blog for that simply misunderstands our purpose.
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I like how his post almost portrays us as intransigent: How dare the youth actually have its own forums to discuss and debate the issues at their own pace, rather than merely swallowing whatever Our Elders pass on to us?
I read Kos, I read other liberal blogs (and conservative and libertarian ones too, FWIW). You said it quite well - our purpose is different from their purpose.
I've posted a response on Future Majority.
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I appreciate your response. I think fundamentally we are in agreement that what Campus Progress does is not very well co-ordinated with what a lot of the major progressive blogs, particularly the more electorally-focused ones do. I think your observation of this is legitimate and insightful, but I interpreted the way you wrote it initially -- and perhaps inaccurately -- as criticism, and just felt it necessary to clarify that what we do is intentionally different.
Per your suggestion that we post more on what students are doing, I would just point out that we have a lot of user-driven content on that. For instance, last week we saw a plethora of posts and comments from young attendees at our annual conference and ran an article by a student activist at Colby who helped campaign for the recently passed Opportunity Maine Act.
It's also true, as you point out, that we don't necessarily have our outside bloggers assessing, say, candidate X's new healthcare proposal and responding to Ezra's take on it. The reason for that is that we encourage our bloggers and magazine writers to refrain from mimicking what is done better by more experienced experts, e.g. opine on politics and policy. We want our constituents to be trained as reporters and to express a youthful perspective on issues where youth are particularly important , e.g. issues like academic freedom and student debt. We don't stop our bloggers from writing the stuff you suggest but we don't encourage it either, because we are trying to fill a distinct void.