New Media Stuff

After stalking the Facebook sites of some B-list S.C. politicos earlier this week, our new competition over at Wolfe Reports actually has a pretty decent article up this week on South Carolina’s burgeoning new media scene.

And although the story includes several quotes from our founding editor, we have to remind him every so often that the world does not revolve around him, which means we’re including a quote from the other blogger they spoke with.

From Wolfe Reports:

“It definitely seems that the political blogs are gaining influence in moving stories mainstream,” said Jennifer Read of the liberal blog Indigo Journal. “I know for us, for Indigo Journal, it’s been really great to see that candidates and progressive ideas have more voice. One thing that’s really interesting about Indigo Journal is that it’s a user-driven Web site. It’s opened up the process to a lot of lay people, and we’re noticing that we have a lot of people who aren’t necessarily politicos, not so much insider baseball anymore, more ordinary folks getting involved in the blogging process.”

That’s all very true. And very good for the debate we need to be having as a state about just how tragically effed up we are.

And while Jennifer Read and her blogging buddies over at Indigo Journal wouldn’t know a common sense policy idea if it walked up to them wearing a name tag, the fact remains that they – like all blogs – are advancing the conversation in ways that even five years ago would have been considered unimaginable.

It’s a wide-open new information marketplace, but it’s still one that’s fundamentally built on ideas, people. And the power of those ideas to gain acceptance in that marketplace.

Needless to say, though, it’s obvious that new media on both the right and the left (or in our case “left field”) are becoming increasingly important players in that marketplace.