In addition to adding new voices to the media landscape, political blogs in particular were utilized to release and control information from some sources. Without the traditional requirements of traditional newspapers, online blogs traded absolute reliability for speed.
“I think blogs drove the news for a long while in Loudoun County,” said public relations specialist and Republican party member David D'Onofrio.
Since the 2007, the blogosphere appears to have undergone a decline. While many of the popular blogs remain active, there do not appear to be a significant increase of new blogs to replace those that have fallen silent. While activity on certain blogs remains lively, some blogs have seen a decline in regular postings and even popular political blogs have seen less activity than in years past.
Politics as Unusual
The word “blog” – short for web log – was originally conceived as an online diary and is believed to have been coined 10 years prior in 1997. The term blogosphere refers to the community of blogs and their interconnections.
Nothing gives life to a blog like a heated viewpoint, and few things spark heated views like politics.
Blogs in Loudoun were at their height 10 years later in 2007 -- a major election year in Loudoun County and the source of many of the online discussions.
The most active local blog remains Tooconservative.com, the right-leaning political blog known for its numerous – and sometimes bitter – disputes among readers using the comment function.
During the 2007 election cycle, the popularity of Too Conservative was certainly aided by the mystique surrounding one of its more popular moderators – the anonymous “Loudoun Insider.” Originally a regular visitor and commenter for the site, which was started by Vincent Harris, he was later asked to join as a contributor. While his identity is now less of a mystery, he asked that his name be withheld.
“Loudoun Insider” was credited with releasing news, postings and analysis critical, at times, of both political parties. His identity was a popular subject in the months surrounding the 2007 election. He credits himself with exposing behind-the-scenes machinations of the political parties that were widely discussed online.
The blog gained a following even among public officials. According to “Loudoun Insider,” even some members of the Board of Supervisors were known to post on the website from time to time, and at least one supervisor openly guessed at his identity.
Too Conservative is also known for heated debates, often personal and abrasive. “Loudoun Insider” explained that these disputes are often among regular users and carry on through different threads. But in his opinion, the disagreements are not a negative. “I love a good fight,” he said.
Unlike many blogs, Too Conservative is also known for encouraging the debate by allowing comments from left-leaning bloggers and readers on their site as well. Different blogs have different standards for moderating debate.
The Democratic Response
Perhaps part of Too Conservative’s longevity can be linked to its multiple moderators, who act together to provide a variety of content. While open to readers of other political viewpoints, Too Conservative was without a left-leaning counterpart for most of its existence. In 2009, the Operative Word blog filled this niche, but it shut down the same year.
Following the Too Conservative model, Loudoun Progress (loudounprogress.us) is the brainchild of four local bloggers, each of whom also maintains their own blog. Elizabeth Miller, wife of Loudoun County supervisor Stevens Miller (D-Dulles), told the Indie that the website came about when she was speaking with several other left-leaning, Democrat or progressive bloggers at a social event.
The still-young Loudoun Progress blog's contributors are Miller, who maintains a personal blog and a semi-political blog, Adventures of the Doorbell Queen (doorbellqueen.blogspot.com); David Weintraub of Equality Loudoun (equalityloudoun.org), an extremely active blog focusing on gay and lesbian issues; Dave Nemetz of In Through the Out Door (nemetzblogspot.com); and the author of Leesburg Tomorrow (leesburgtomorrow.us).
Miller blogs regularly on Loudoun Progress, as well as her own two blogs – dividing blog posts by topic. She indicated that by working with her co-bloggers, they were able to better divide the responsibility for regular posts and cross-utilize their respective readerships.
As she is the wife of a county supervisor, Miller's online activities are closely followed. While her blogging on political subjects is a newer development, her personal blog is over five years old and focuses more on lifestyle issues, such as her love of mystery novels. An admitted reader of her website’s conservative counterpart, she did say that the level of acrimony in the comments went past her comfort level. “The way the commenters attack each other sets my teeth on edge ... I don’t read the comments.”
The Public Good
While many consider blogs a self-aggrandizing activity, some bloggers point to examples of their work impacting the community.
Erin Himstedt Rice of author of lifestyle blog Suburban Fizz (suburbanfizz.com) is the primary organizer for Bloggers for Good, an informal group that gathers local bloggers together several times a year at social events. At each of the events, part of the proceeds from the evening are passed along to a local charity.
Theoretically, the value of blogs is that as citizen-run operations, they are able to devote time to subjects that sometimes escape the attention of the mainstream press. Ric James of Hooda Thunk (hoodathunkblog.com) expressed his pride in a blog entry from December 2007 ago regarding controversy about the Lakota Native American tribal nation, which attracted the attention of many of the community’s members – despite the distance between their Midwest location and his home in Loudoun.
James’ blog is an example of a successful single-user blog, where a single person provides all of the content. Despite the natural benefits of collaboration, James points to certain issues and postings that netted him significant web traffic and comments from readers.
Other bloggers point to local issues as significant contributions, Joe Budzinski of Nova Town Hall (novatownhall.com), instead pointed down the street and to how his blog was able to document problems with illegal activity in his neighborhood. While many bloggers seem obsessed with the big picture, Budzinski said “It’s about the micro-picture.”
The Slowdown
Rice, of Suburban Fizz, has noted a slowdown among blogs in the region. She suggested that many bloggers begin writing because they have a lot of specific ideas and once these entries are out of their system, writing becomes more of a chore.
Other bloggers point to the fact that however rewarding, people blog for free. It’s something done for enjoyment, but must be worked into the other priorities in the blogger’s life.
“Remember,” Budzinski said, “there’s a limit to how much a free writer can do.”
Budzinski has blogged since 2005 on Nova Town Hall, another popular blog with multiple contributors.
While multi-user blogs appear to maintain a level of readership and success, it remains questionable how many new bloggers are entering the social arena, and even successful blogs have seen an apparent drop in readership.
Social media may also have taken a toll. Tammi Marcoullier – former “Living in Loco” blogger for the Washington Post’s Loudoun Extra webpage – suggested that the ease of sharing on Facebook or Twitter allows potential bloggers a specific, built-in audience. This might be a reason for the small number of new blogs seen in the region.
Facebook and other social media sites also allow bloggers and readers to select their friends and followers, ensuring that the information they see comes from a trusted source. “People expect important news to come to them,” Marcoullier said.
The Future
Given the ease of maintaining a blog and the difficulty in differentiating oneself, D’Onofrio believes, “They’re going to have to get to a higher level of quality. The Loudoun blogosphere will elevate to the quality of information they’re passing along.” D’Onofrio also moderates The Beltway Scoop (thecaseygroup.us/BWS), a service that provides links and headlines to different media sources.
While some bloggers agreed that many local blogs had slowed down in the last year, most political bloggers interviewed said they expected a resurgence in 2011 before elections for the Board of Supervisors, School Board, General Assembly and Loudoun’s Constitutional officers. “Loudoun Insider” referred to the current period as “the calm before the storm.”
“The day after the [2010] election, it’s going to go berserk,” James said, agreeing that the slowdown was attributable to a slow local news cycle.
While there have not been a large number of new blogs in the Loudoun area to replace those that have either fallen silent or slowed their production, the local blogs have presented a forum for some familiar Loudoun voices. Former Loudoun Easterner and Loudoun Times-Mirror editor Martin Casey began his Life in Loudoun County blog (lifeinloudouncounty.blogspot.com) in April 2010.
Longtime fans of the Living in Loco blog on the Loudoun Extra website were reunited with the blog’s founder, Tammi Marcoulier, when she starting blogging again on her own website (livinginloco.com).
The full list of blogs mentioned in this article are as follows:
Too Conservative http://www.tooconservative.com/
The True Adventures of the Doorbell Queen http://doorbellqueen.blogspot.com/
Loudoun Progress http://loudounprogress.us/frontPage.do
Equality Loudoun http://www.equalityloudoun.org/
In Through the Out Door http://nemetzblog.blogspot.com/
Leesburg Tomorrow http://www.leesburgtomorrow.us/
Suburban Fizz http://www.suburbanfizz.com/
Hooda Thunk http://www.hoodathunkblog.com/
Nova Town Hall http://novatownhall.com/
Living in Loco http://www.livinginloco.com/
The Casey Group http://www.thecaseygroup.us/BWS/
Life in Loudoun County http://lifeinloudouncounty.blogspot.com/
This is nonsense.