Netroots Nation: Progressive Local Blogging

(Click to read my first and second debriefs of Netroots Nation.)

As the newspaper continues its steady decline, we're losing what little local news coverage we had. Given that local government plays such an active role in shaping the day-to-day lives of its citizens, this is a serious problem.

But already, we can see the shape of what can fill the gap as newspapers recede.

We've written here before about DC's local blogosphere, which is pretty large and lively. Most local DC blogs are written from the perspective of residents who want the best for their neighborhood.

Netroots Nation's "Local Blogs" panel offered up a group of folks who take that to a higher level: they blog with an agenda. (We've got one or two of those here in DC, too.)

On the panel were Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg of Philadelphia's Young Philly Blog, Paul Hogarth of the San Fransisco blog BeyondChron, Eli Ackerman of the New Orleans' Save Charity Hospital, and Josh Kalven who blogs about Chicago on Progress Illinois.

The panel was moderated by Evan Coren, who blogs in our neighboring Howard County.* Evan started blogging to shed light on a specific story: there were plans underway for a major real estate development that he believed "would destroy existing gathering places...and would not be socio-economically mixed."

"I realized there wasn't good way to get info out to the community," Evan said at the panel. "The local newspaper wasn't providing coverage."

So Evan started the Howard County Blog, recruited more writers, and soon this blog became a viable force in the local scene.

"It's not enough to tell people they should be outraged," said Evan about his mission. "By regularly writing about it, you can explain what would otherwise be a very opaque issue."

He explained that by identifying and occupying a specific niche, a blogger can add value to the discussion. "If you don't do it, no one else will."

Josh Kalven noted that bloggers can correct a deep flaw in the newspaper model: "When good muckraking uncovers small but important issues, we can keep them from falling down the memory hole."

The audience for these issues, of course, will rarely if ever compare to the reach of a major newspaper.

"But it's not about the number of readers," said Evan. "It's about who is reading."

The panelists reported that their readers include local politicians and staff, aspiring candidates, community leaders and especially local reporters from the flailing mainstream media. As a result, their coverage can have a clear influence on the public discourse.

But the capacity to write a deeply-informed, regularly updated blog -- usually without any form of compensation -- is fairly rare. Dan reports that finding and keeping contributors is a constant problem at Young Philly ("I would go to parties and actually harass people to write") and that a major blogger signing off can be a blow felt throughout an entire local blogosphere.





But the capacity to write a deeply-informed, regularly updated blog -- usually without any form of compensation -- is fairly rare. Dan reports that finding and keeping contributors is a constant problem at Young Philly ("I would go to parties and actually harass people to write") and that a major blogger signing off can be a blow felt throughout an entire local blogosphere.

Institutional support can help fill this gap: Josh Kalven's work at ProgressIllinois is sponsored by the state SEIU. Meanwhile, Beyond Chron is a project of Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which offers civil legal services to low income San Franciscans. (It's a model similar to Bread for the City and Beyond Bread.)

Already, Beyond Chron's record suggests that small amounts of dedicated resources can fill the gap left by the passing of much larger news operations. When Mayor Gavin Newsom held an orchestrated press conference to announce his budget proposal, Beyond Chron's lawyer/writer/editor Paul Hogarth actually read the plan -- a step farther than most local reporters bothered to go. He discovered that Newsom's public announcement contained some significant deceptions that had serious implications for the health of the city's hospitals, mental health support systems, and other safety net programs.

Though we do need some sort of professional newsmaking capacity to survive even as newspapers fail, when it comes to exposing deception and bad governance, Hogarth says "it doesn't take a lot."

This was a repeated refrain: that small efforts to apply local pressure can have large impacts. "There's more energy around city-blogging than state blogging," suggested Josh Calven. "The issues are more immediate, and the characters are more familiar."

That said, each city struggles with similar problems -- and one of the most interesting suggestions from the panel was that of a future in which these networks link together such that local advocates can learn from what's happening in other cities. Like a League of Beleaguered Cities, suggested Eli Ackerman -- who blogs from post-Katrina New Orleans with a mission that recalls our own SaveOurSafetyNet campaign, with even more urgency.

* NB: Evan's blogging helped him acquire deep knowledge of the issues and the city, and also gave him a potent base when he decided to run for City Council. He opposed a candidate who was not likely to play an active role in pushing for smarter development plans. Evan's campaign -- which was waged both online and door-to-door -- doubled the turnout in the election; he won by 21 votes. Another indication that in local matters with large stakes, small organized efforts can have a big impact.